Legislators decided Wednesday they had gone to the well one too many times in an attempt to balance their budget, The Durango Herald reports. The House turned back an attempt to drain the final $19 million out of a fund used to build water projects.

The Colorado House of Representatives on Tuesday approved HB 10-1188, clarifying the rights of commercial rafters, by a vote of 40 to 25. The bill will now go on to the Colorado Senate for review, the Aspen Daily News reports. “Today’s vote shows that 1188 is a bipartisan solution,” said Ben Davis, spokesman for the Colorado River Outfitters Association, who noted that the House Minority Leader, Republican Mike May, voted for the bill. “Everyone wants to see Colorado’s rivers stay open for business.”

In other coverage:

The Pueblo Chieftain: A bill that allows rafters to go aground on private property passed the House on Tuesday and awaits the governor’s signature to become law. Sponsored by state Rep. Kathleen Curry, unaffiliated-Gunnison, HB1188 sparked debate over commercial rafters’ rights to travel public waterways and the rights of property owners.

A bill that would have made the wind blowing across your land a private property right unto itself was tabled indefinitely last week after a state study said the bill would have created a new way to tax landowners, but its sponsor says “severing” wind rights still has legs, the Coloradoan reports. House Bill 1158, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, was shelved, but Gardner said Friday that landowners on the Eastern Plains are starting to deed away their wind rights and the law isn’t clear about how that figures into property rights in Colorado.

The Colorado House approved House Bill 10-1188 on a voice vote Friday to clarify that commercial rafting companies have the right to float down a historically run stretch of river, even if they have incidental contact with rocks and the river banks, and that they have the right to portage across private property to avoid hazardous obstacles in the river. Third and final reading of the bill is expected to take place on Monday.

Other coverage:

Colorado Statesman: Lawmakers took the first step in deciding whether commercial outfitters have the right to float through private property Monday when the House Judiciary Committee gave House Bill 1188 a favorable recommendation after nearly six hours of testimony from river outfitters, landowners, district attorneys and water law experts.

 
Video: KDVR

As if Colorado water law weren’t complicated enough, the right to take a rafting trip down the Animas River might hinge on how far upstream boats could sail in England in the reign of King James I. At least that was a question lawyers raised Monday night when debating a bill that would help river-rafting companies, The Durango Herald reports.

From the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: Rafting companies would be allowed to cross private land whether property owners like it or not under a bill that won approval in a House committee Monday. House Bill 1188, introduced by Rep. Kathleen Curry, U-Gunnison, stemmed from a recent announcement from a Texas developer, Lewis Shaw, that he no longer would allow two rafting companies to traverse two miles of his land along the Taylor River.

State Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R–Sterling, Friday was successful in securing the necessary votes to defeat a “basin of origin” water bill that he says would have hurt farmers along the South Platte, the Sterling Journal-Advocate reports. “If this bill passes, you just as well paint a big red target on the back of farmers in eastern Colorado,” Sonnenberg argued. Rep. Sal Pace (D-Pueblo) introduced HB 1159 which would have made mitigation a requirement when water was transferred from one division to another. The bill lost by a 40-21 vote.

Western Slope legislators got a lesson in math Friday when the House voted down a bill on water transfers. House Bill 1159 would have required cities that want to import water from far away to negotiate with local water districts to minimize the impacts, The Durango Herald reports. The bill would have put Western Slope water districts in a stronger position when Front Range cities come looking for water in future years. “There are damages when water is moved,” said Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, the bill’s sponsor.

Lawyers, rafts and money: Those are the debates in store for Colorado’s water community this year at the Legislature, The Durango Herald reports. A Pueblo Democrat wants to make sure that water imports from wet basins to dry ones don’t harm people in the original basin. And a Gunnison representative wants to make sure rafting guides can float the state’s rivers, no matter who owns the riverbank.

A measure is to be introduced that would require water transfers from one river basin to another, such as the Western Slope to the Front Range, to include mitigation agreements, an issue that always creates turbulence between water users on both sides of the Continental Divide, The Pueblo Chieftain reports. Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, will introduce the legislation.

By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has beefed-up the department’s employee ethics program following a scandal last year at the Denver-based Minerals Management Service.
Salazar Monday authorized increasing financial and personnel resources to the ethics program, as well as increasing the authority of ethics officers, and requiring more employee involvement in performance evaluations, accountability and compliance.
“I have made openness and public trust my highest priorities at the Department of the Interior,” Salazar said to the department’s 67,000 employees. “As public servants, each of us shares responsibility for fulfilling this commitment and to upholding the highest ethical standards at all times.”
Scandal rocked the department’s Minerals Management Service last year under former President George W. Bush’s administration, including allegations of corruption, drug use and sexual misconduct.
Last week, Salazar also announced that his department would end its oil and gas royalty program, which is administered by the Minerals Management Service. Beyond the scandal, the agency has also been accused of mismanagement, including failing to collect at least $21 million in fees last year.
But Congressman Mike Coffman, R-Lone Tree, objects to Salazar’s direction, arguing that his approach is preventing the development of domestic energy production and “perpetuating America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy,” according to a recent news release.
“So, we can’t drill onshore, we can’t drill offshore, we can’t develop oil shale, we can’t develop nuclear, and we can’t develop solar?” Coffman asked Salazar last week at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing. “Mr. Secretary, why won’t you let Americans develop energy?”
Salazar’s office, however, maintains that the Interior Department must take a cautious and calculated approach to energy production, including holding ethics to a higher standard.
A working group has been established with the task of making recommendations to Salazar by Jan. 31, 2010 on how to improve ethics within the department. The interior secretary believes he is upholding the values of President Obama’s administration.
“President Obama pledged to improve and restore public trust in government through ethical reform and transparency in governance,” Salazar said.

Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters

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