hello today's lesson is on the water rights for the state of Colorado um this is kind of a compilation and a shortened version of um years and years of law um you should know that water law in Colorado is a big deal and water is very important in Colorado and so it's important that we as agriculturalists understand it the quote on the screen comes from a guy named John Gunther who was an American journalist and writer and he um said if you touch water in the west then you touch everything because um water touches virtually every industry and every part of life the picture below is actually of Blue Mesa Reservoir Blue Mesa Reservoir is the largest Reservoir in Colorado um and storage of drinking and irrigation water in the state state of Colorado the public actually owns the water and so um changes in water um actually have to be made by legislative law that includes every natural stream tributary groundwater and it all is subject to appropriation we really can't understand water rights until you fully understand the water cycle and I know this seems a little third grish but it's important for you to review and kind of um evaluate in your brain just a little bit um things start with precipitation coming from the sky in the form of rain sleet snow hail and we see that some of that water goes down under the surface into groundwater and some of it stays on the surface in the forms of lak streams and rivers I used this diagram because I really like how it shows infiltration and and what we don't realizes that when water goes through layers of sand and rock and clay and all these other things um that it actually cleans it so it acts as somewhat of a biological filter it's also important to understand um what groundwater is called and in the case of large accumulations we call that groundwater aquafers when we drill Wells to access water we are drilling into aquifers and groundwater sources the surface runoff that comes off the mountains um Can evaporate straight out of those places or it is sometimes taken up by plants pardon me and so when plants take up water they actually release a large amount of what they take up in a process called transport transpiration not Transportation transpiration and that water also goes back into the environment all of this water evaporates up condenses in the sky and returns to us in precipitation in order for you to use a get the legal right to use water in Colorado that is a product of that water cycle you have to have a water right decree and so anytime you divert any water from the ground or Surface or stream that water right decree will tell you the location of the diver where the water comes from the amount that can be diverted how it can be stored and what priority it is when you establish water rights or when you really think about them you have to understand the phrase first in time first and right the water right structure actually dates back in the state of Colorado to the mining era and what would happen is miners would find um minerals in a portion of stream and then they would go to the the office the mine office if if you will I don't know what it was called and they would actually make a claim on that chunk of stream and that meant then that they owned the right to all of the minerals in that portion of the stream and that was really our first water rights um we we've shifted that and we've translated that to use the first to develop a permanent water right system but the thing that has really stayed is this idea that those older rights those rights that were placed first um have the first right to use so for example if you have a water right that was decreed in 1985 that's fairly recent but if you have one that was decreed in 1900 that would take precedence over it because it was first in time so it is first and right within the water right system in Colorado rights are given a specific priority senior rights are the very first rights or early rights that were decreed on a specific stream or ground system and Junior rights are more recent filed on the same system when the water runs short and a process is followed where you put a call on the stream those senior rights have priority over Junior rights um one of the interesting facts about the state of Colorado is that water the the decision of how many water rights were available was made during a time when there was more moisture in the state than there has been ever since so for most people agree that water rights in Colorado are actually overallocated meaning we have the state of Colorado has sold more rights or decreed more rights um than there is actually available on a given year we know that we are um at the Merc of of the natural um levels of snowfall and precipitation and as a Headwater State it's really important that we understand that that number will never be the same however when they allocated it it was relatively high and so it's fairly common where a situation arises where there's not enough water in the water source for uh for all of the water rights to be um honored and when that happens um whoever feels like they're not getting their water rights uh puts a call on the ditch if you will and what that means is that state hired officials then um issue this call and make sure that all of the right holders or the decree holders are getting their set amount of water in the order that it is decreed and so until somebody puts a call on the ditch um for the most part those people that are on that ditch and maintaining it and using the water for beneficial use particularly in agriculture work together kind of in a teamwork environment as much as they can but it's a little tricky because the water rights don't always follow the natural flow of the stream and we'll look at a diagram about that in a minute um until we get there though you should also know that in Colorado water rights are private property rights and they are private property rights that do not have to stay tied to the property the owner can sell lease or rent these rights separate from their property rights and you can actually change things about certain water rights in water court if needed um there is a clause in that law also that's um called the use it or lose it clause which basically says that in a period of five years if water is not being put to beneficial use the owner of that water right can lose it um water rights can only be used for the beneficial purpose stated in the decree all other uses are illegal um this definitely comes into play um in some water rights um like for well permits maybe saying this can be used for residential use but not for irrigation um and different things like that in addition it's um worth noting that water flow can't be Tamp tampered with from its original path so if you do something to physically move the path of a stream or divert it without the consent of the court that could alter the return flows and affect the people Downstream um so you can't do that water right owners also have the right and duty to maintain their ditches so everyone who receives water from that ditch should work together in the maintenance of it which means that they have to have access to the property that that ditch goes across to keep the the ditches clean and in good repair 1973 was a pivotal year in water law because this was when Colorado legislator legislature adopted a law that we commonly refer to as instream flow um and basically this said that the state of Colorado will maintain a certain amount of flow a certain amount of water rights to maintain flow in the river and this was done to help maintain the natural wildlife and make sure that we didn't at any point ruin the habitat for different Wildlife plants fish and recreational use in the Colorado River this was controversial at the time because sometimes leaving those rights or returning those rights to the river might mean that other people with water rights don't get to use that water but it did make a substantial difference in the um reintroduction of several major fish species in Colorado and continues to make sure that we can do what we need to in protecting natural habitats when we measure water we do that in water flow um which is measured in cubic feet per second and then we also measure water in one acre foot so as you read irri a um statements or water right statements you might see some of some of this ter terminology one acre foot um basically means that it there's a foot of water across an entire football field and so you might have your your amount of water measured in that we're going to look at an example now so you can kind of put this into practice um we have kind of an Imaginary Land here of water rights you can see several five different ranches on this same ditch um on each of these places we have uh an established date meaning how old the rights are how many shares they have and whether they are senior or Junior rights the water flows down the stream from the top of the screen um to the bottom and that's something we want to talk about because um sometimes the people with the most senior rights are at the bottom of the ditch and that's really comes into play when you put a call on the ditch because that means that those people on the top part of the ditch can't draw their irrigation right but they just have to let it flow by um because of the legal um the legal order that water is decreed in and so pay attention to a couple of things here um we have the established dates we also have which ones are senior rights versus Junior rights senior rights um are honored first and then we have those total numbers so if you add all of this up this Creek that we're looking at in our Imaginary Land has 65 shares allocated but it's in we're in Colorado and so lots of years were in a drought so what would happen the question becomes if this um year there was only 30 shares available because of the drought who would get their water and who would not um the first thing you kind of do is is look at senior versus junior rights and then you're going to put them in a numerical order so take just a minute figure out what order you think that would be and how this would work and here's what would actually happen we first first take a look at senior rights um so we know that Allen's Angus Ranch Harry's herfords and Brian's Brahman cattle I'll have the senior rights so they're going to be honored first when we put those in order of oldest to youngest remember first in time first in right then that tells us that um Brian's Brahman cattle has the oldest shares those would be honored first at 22 shares next in line is Harry's herfords established in 1908 those would be honored in five shares and then finally Ang Allen's Angus Ranch would be next in line but we don't have enough to honor all his shares so if there's really only 30 shares of water available on the creek um Allen would get three of his eight shares but that's all and the other um two ranches would not receive any of their water rights at all this would probably be a little tricky in real life because Brian's is at the very bottom of the ditch and and there's some irony to that but it truly is water law and and it's the way that it would be enforced that those people at the top of the ditch would have to just watch the water go by now occasionally in times of drought farmers and ranchers will work together and um try to honor just a little bit of everybody's shares um but sometimes that doesn't go well because people begin stealing water and taking matters into their own hand we hear stories all throughout history of in the west um headgates which is the water the place where the water comes through and is measured actually having to be locked shut except for the state ditch Rider so that people don't come in and change um the diversion boxes to give themselves more water so in an in a field like agriculture where water truly determines your success in terms of pasture and crops um this the um debates get fairly heated it's important to um realize that why while water is very important agriculturally um it there is also legal precedent set and so there are so many water situations and water discrepancies involving the law that there is actually a special Water Court in Colorado to deal with those um I think it's really important for you to understand water rights particularly if you're going to be a resident um in Colorado and especially Plateau Valley someday because the best way to to make sure your neighbors stay neighborly is to honor um the fair and legal way to um manage water rights hopefully this was helpful and um don't forget to subscribe to my channel and thanks for coming have a good day