🚀 go-pugleaf

On 6/18/2012 6:37 PM, chatnoir wrote:

> All invited to Colorado Water Gala,
> the Grand Launch of 2 citizen ballot initiatives
> to protect Colorado's most precious resource, our water!


http://coloradostatesman.com/content/993542-proposed-ballot-initiatives-water-rights-are-swirling-controversy

�It subjects every water right that we have in the state to being 
reconsidered, or curtailed, or denied entirely based on a determination 
of what�s in the public�s good,� said Doug Kemper, executive director of 
the Colorado Water Congress, which is opposing the initiatives along 
with the Colorado Water Conservation Board � part of the Department of 
Natural Resources � and the Colorado River Water Conservation District.

Opponents point out that water frequently does not naturally exist in 
Colorado, and therefore government must step in to divert sufficient 
quantities to sustain human settlement and enterprise in Colorado. 
Critics say the state�s current appropriation system is �fair� and 
�orderly,� proving to be �flexible� and �successful.�

�The adoption of either of these initiatives would result in takings of 
private and public water rights that Coloradans rely on for beneficial 
uses for health and human safety as well as economic benefit,� states a 
resolution adopted by the board of the Colorado River Water Conservation 
District.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board has raised separate concerns about 
impacting more than 150 years of court opinions and legislation 
governing water rights. Kemper shares those concerns. �If you go down 
that path, then you turn 150 years of water law on its head, you just 
turn it upside down,� he said.

Kemper also worries about unintended consequences with opening all of 
the state�s streams to public access when many of those streams are 
currently considered to be private land.

�The ability for people to supply water for municipal, industrial and 
commercial agricultural needs really becomes in jeopardy; it undermines 
the whole constitutional foundation for our