New development, like that seen here in northern Colorado, to accommodate population growth, together with a warmer, drier climate, stresses the state’s water supply. As Colorado’s water consumption reaches its limits, intensive water management is becoming more critical than ever.
Colorado’s Water Future Efficient water diversion and storage, beneficial use without waste, recognition of all beneficial uses that Coloradans value—these have always been fundamental precepts of Colorado water law. The era of their fuller implementation is upon us. Colorado’s water supplies are highly variable and affected by increasingly frequent periods of drought. At the same time, the state’s population is growing and, with it, so are the gaps between water demands and available supplies. As Colorado’s water consumption reaches the limits of its availability and allotments under interstate compacts and treaties, intensive water management is becoming more critical than ever. The Colorado Water Plan, published in 2015, lays out a roadmap for Coloradans to cooperate in the use and management of the public’s limited water resources. That water policy 28
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and planning work continues. Ongoing efforts by stakeholders and the basin roundtables, led by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, aim to implement and update the water plan to meet the water needs of cities, towns, industry, agriculture, the environment and recreation. The plan recognizes that the state’s “intricate legal and institutional framework, and the institutional setting is the starting point for all other conversations regarding Colorado’s water future.” Colorado has always been good at adapting its water law to accommodate scarce supply and changing needs. Rather than radical shifts, the state has preserved its foundational legal system and built upon it with new legislation and case law every year (see Chronology, p. 29). Take, for example, the many laws that provide increasing flexibility for
water leases and sharing agreements to better facilitate alternative transfer methods—keeping water in agriculture while enabling opportunities for ag producers to temporarily lease water to municipalities or to bolster dry rivers through instream flows. Adaptation of the law also happens beyond the state's borders. On the Colorado River, years of agreements, collectively known as the “Law of the River,” have been layered upon the 1922 Colorado River Compact to address how the river’s water is divided among states and, more recently, to structure reservoir operations and reductions in water use in order to cope with declining flows while keeping the underlying compact intact. This evolution is sure to continue as willing collaborators find legal solutions to help meet the challenges and preserve the many, and sometimes competing, values of our time. MATTHEW STAVER
