Colorado’s Water Resources Review Committee is tasked with recommending water-related legislation for the upcoming session, and as the state crafts a comprehensive plan for meeting growing water demands as well as conserving its limited water resources, the committee’s work increasingly becomes part of a larger picture. To that end, a proposal to allow Coloradans to collect rainwater should move forward — and without restrictions that will complicate the practice.
The committee met Tuesday and among the discussion items was another attempt at rain-barrel legislation. In the 2015 session, lawmakers scuttled a bill that would have allowed it, largely due to concerns about upsetting Colorado’s enshrined notion of prior appropriation – the underpinning of water law in the state – which determines that those water rights that were claimed before another’s are senior and therefore cannot be compromised by taking water out of the system. Ostensibly, homeowners who collect rain water in barrels – except those whose homes get their water from wells – are capturing that which would otherwise flow into rivers and streams, and eventually into the hands of awaiting water-rights holders downstream. The concern, though, is wholly theoretical and not one likely to play out in any operational manner.
Nevertheless, water law being what it is in Colorado – namely, incredibly complicated and somewhat arcane – this theoretical concern is sufficient to raise legislators’ and water interests’ collective eyebrows. It need not. While it is, perhaps, possible that if every residence in metro Denver had a rain barrel, the overall water availability in the region’s streams, rivers and aquifers would drop, that scenario is sufficiently far-fetched as to be irrelevant. Given that, the Water Resources Review Committee’s need not include language requiring water providers to replace – again, in theory – the water harvested from rooftops. Nor should it mandate that all rain barrels are registered. That is regulation beyond sensibility, and to no practicable end.
When rain falls in Colorado, there is no reason why those upon whom it falls cannot benefit. It is wholly safe to assume that the water collected will be applied to lawns, gardens or other outdoor features that will ultimately return the water to the larger system once it soaks into the ground. Downstream senior water rights holders can rest easy knowing that the rain will ultimately be delivered to its rightful owners, though they may have to wait a slightly bit longer for the delivery. A registry would do nothing to improve this, nor will it prevent malfeasance on the part of rain collectors. It would add a bureaucratic layer for no good reason other than as a target of ridicule.
The Colorado Legislature should absolutely adopt legislation allowing for rain-barrel collection, but it should be a clean bill that does not include a registration requirement or a provision compelling water providers to replace the rainwater that is supposedly lost due to the practice. Those who wish to utilize rainwater for domestic purposes should be allowed to do so – it causes no harm and is, in fact, wise use of a limited resource. If there is grave concern, though, about water takings, the legislation could include language prohibiting rainwater from being captured and trucked out of state. That is about as likely to happen as rain barrels impacting senior water rights holders downstream, but it would actually be injurious.
