It has been an exciting week. I am working hard on my bills as well as keeping up on my committee bills and those that come to the floor. I actually have a little advantage over other legislators in that my apartment is half a block from the Capitol, so all of my time, when I am not showering, sleeping or attending receptions, is spent reading and preparing for action on bills.
My number one issue is water storage, and primarily storage in the South Platte drainage in Colorado. Why on the South Platte? Because that is the one drainage on the eastern side of Colorado that regularly has water that leaves the state that legally can be stored and used in Colorado.
When I was in the Legislature in 2011 and 2012 I started paying attention to the water in the South Platte Basin that was leaving the state. There were two years in particular where more than 1 million acre feet per year were wasted, another where 600,000 acre feet left the state, and even today there is excess water running out of the state that could be used to augment other water needs in Colorado.
If we could store that water, it would help to satisfy the demand on the Front Range and relieve the need to send water from the Western Slope to the more populated eastern side of the Continental Divide.
For the past many years, I have been learning all I can about water, water compacts with other states, water law and everything else related to water that I could possibly learn. I started at a young age when my parents were paid to measure the water at the Colorado/New Mexico state line on the La Plata River, south of Hesperus.
On most early mornings before I caught the bus for school, I would measure the amount of water in the river. That information then was relayed to the water authorities in both states where ditches were closed or opened depending on their priority.
I have monitored Gov. John Hickenlooper’s Water Plan and have attended as many water roundtable meetings as I could possibly make. I have attended the Colorado Water Congress meetings among the most knowledgeable water lawyers and providers in Colorado. I still have much to learn.
Everywhere I go I have asked folks about storage on the South Platte. The more I have learned, the more it has become evident that all of the information needed to make good decisions about how and where to store water is scattered in many different places. I decided that it was necessary to pull all of that information together and that the easiest way to do so is to run a bill. That bill is HB 1167. It will be heard in the House Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 18. It is indeed an honor to represent the 59th House District of the State of Colorado!
J. Paul Brown represents House District 59 in Colorado’s General Assembly. The district encompasses Archuleta, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan County. Contact Rep. Brown by phone at (303) 866-2914 or by e-mail at jpaul.brown.house@state.co.us.
