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I believe a response to your July 8 editorial “The South Platte Quandary” is in order. For fair minded people there are many ways to ease the weight that is being placed on the backs of well owners. But first we should correct the many errors in the above mentioned editorial. First is the idea that wells are a junior water right. High capacity water wells existed in Colorado as early as 1870, six years before the state constitution was written, yet they were left out of the constitution, why? Because it was then believed that as ground water it belonged to the land where it was found. Until the nineteen seventies a land owner couldn’t have sought appropriation or a decree if he had wanted, yet we are penalized for not doing so. The editorial said it’s mostly the same water, it’s not. Groundwater is now and has been considered different from surface flows, by law and by science. Wells percolate the aquifer and re-expose water to surface flows. Most well water if unused would never reach the surface and simply leave the state underground. The amounts claimed by the objectors and believed by the courts are either a demonstration of their ignorance or their deceit. The Supreme Court over-stepped itself in 2001 when it took authority away from the State Engineers Office. In an abuse of power, an activist court found a loophole to carry out this travesty. The Colorado Constitution charges the State Engineers Office with administering the waters of the state, based on a doctrine of prior appropriation and for maximum beneficial use. From 1876 until 2001 we survived both floods and drought. With the court in charge we will likely survive neither. Just being the Supreme Court doesn’t always make them right, most will remember Dred Scott, a man done a terrible injustice by an ignoble court. The “time-honored doctrine of prior appropriation” that the editorial speaks of has been messed with many times. The 1969 law that is being used to shut down wells was never intended to eliminate ground water irrigation. Because wells of the time operated outside water law, and current information of the time said there was some limited impact on the stream flows, the State Legislature decided to change the “time-honored doctrine of prior appropriation” and try to integrate wells into the system. In a letter to the current Supreme Court, Fred Anderson President of the Senate in 1969 stated in direct terms that the court had misunderstood the law and was not acting as the law intended. Former Senator Anderson was ignored. If time-honored doctrine is what is sought, just turn the wells loose, as they were for the first hundred or so years of the state’s existence. Solutions: Grandfather wells completed before the law change in 1969. People constructed these wells with the complete knowledge of the state, legally and in compliance with every rule of the time. Wells completed after 1969 would be subject to the new law, but the state should publish a depletion schedule so as to prevent endless court fights, which do nothing but eat time and money. Close the loopholes that allowed the court to wrest control of the state’s water from the State Engineer. The courts are too cumbersome and too slow too take advantage of a changing, living river. If there are any provable shortfalls to the river, the state, not the wells would be responsible. The state got us into this mess and are the only ones that can fix it. We can find new water sources, for example, husbandry along the waterways, thinning the cottonwoods, eliminating parasitic plants such as salt cedar, russian olive, and river maintenance similar to Europe would gain more water than the wells could use, but under current law if well owners did these things they still wouldn’t be allowed to pump. It has to be the state. All current augmentation plans should be Incorporated into the state as part of a new agency, under the State Engineer’s Office. To be paid for by the creation of a tax collecting district, made up of groundwater irrigated lands and the municipalities that benefit directly from their existence. Direct the judiciary with the strongest language possible that their role is to settle disputes, not administer the waters of the state. Also to accept the 1969 law as it is written, not as a few individuals would chose to interpret it. The legislature writes law, the court applies law as intended. Paul Sater is a resident of Kersey.
READER COMMENTS
To solve part of the South Platte water problem, there is one solution that would help waterflow for everyone.
Let's return the Platte to be the same as it was in the 1800's.
Clear cut all of the trees away from the river and increase the waterflow by 33%.
There were no trees lining the Platte in the 1800's
The increased waterflow will help all water users.....
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