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Campaign Updates>
Governor Signs Penry Water Legislation
May 27, 2006
For Immediate Release:
May 27, 2006
216-8039
GOVERNOR SIGNS PENRY WATER LEGISLATION
Colorado Governor Bill Owens signed two water bills
sponsored by representative Josh Penry Friday, setting the
stage for landmark water negotiations around Colorado that
will focus on tackling Colorado’s growing water supply
challenges for the coming decades.
The two new laws signed by Governor Owens late yesterday
are the next steps in implementing the Colorado Water for
the 21st Century Act, a bill Penry sponsored in 2005 and
signed by Governor Owens last summer which creates a new,
locally-driven framework for water providers to develop new
reservoirs, find improved water efficiencies, and developed
other means of meeting the fast-growing water demands of
Colorado’s cities, farmers and industrial water users. The
Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act creates an
Interbasin Compact negotiation process, consisting of local
roundtables in each of Colorado’s river basins, and a
statewide Interbasin Compact Committee made up of
representatives from the local roundtables and other water
stakeholders.
“The Governor’s signature of these two landmark bills means
the table is set for water negotiations that are absolutely
critical to the future of Colorado. There’s a lot of very
difficult work ahead, but for the first time in a very,
very long time Colorado has a window of real opportunity to
make progress on our mounting water challenges.
“The bottom line is: we need to put our water to its
fullest use, which means building new reservoirs and
storing more water here on the Western Slope,” he said.
Specifically, SB 179, which Penry sponsored along with
Senator Jim Isgar, would dedicate $10 million in each of
the coming years to fund water projects that are agreed
upon as part of the Interbasin Compact negotiation process.
Under the new law, those dollars can only be allocated to
water related projects that have the support of the
applicable local basin roundtable, ensuring that water rich
areas on the Western Slope have the final say on any
activity affecting its waters in the Interbasin Compact
process. The dollars will likely be used to underwrite
feasibility and environmental analyses required to build
new reservoirs or expand those that exist.
And HB 1400, jointly sponsored by Western Slope
Representatives Bernie Buescher, Josh Penry, and Kathleen
Curry, would ratify the Interbasin Compact Charter
developed by water negotiators from around Colorado. The
Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act required the
creation of a legal Charter to guide water negotiations,
and further stipulated that the Colorado General Assembly
had to ratify that Charter before negotiations could
commence. HB 1400 provided for that ratification. A
provision in the Charter mandates that water can only be
moved from one basin to another with the consent of the
originating basin, a measure that, again, ensures that
water rich areas have final and definitive say over any
activity that affects the water in their region for those
projects developed under this new framework.
Penry said the recent shutting down of wells along the
South Platte is a stark reminder of what can happen if
water solutions are not found. Loss of access to those
wells threatened to put scores of farmers on the Eastern
Plains out of business forever.
Concluded Penry, “What’s happening out on the Eastern
Plains is an ominous reminder of the stakes in all this.
If Colorado’s water factions can’t find a way to work
together and store more of our water, the results will be
very bad for all of Colorado, and rural Colorado in
particular. Failure just isn’t an option.”
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