Water is hot topic in legislature

A bill that would allow illegal ponds to remain undrained in order for the water to be used for wildfire suppression got its first hearing in the past week in the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Senate Bill 114 would allow those ponds to remain, given that the alternative is that they be ordered drained by the state engineer, since they’re unpermitted.

The bill only applies to ponds that can be accessed by firefighting vehicles; those that don’t have that access could still be ordered drained, bill sponsor Sen. Dennis Hisey, R-Colorado Springs, told this reporter.

The number of unpermitted ponds across the state is unknown, but there are at least 10,000 just in the Arkansas River basin, according to the state engineer. The state Division of Water Resources started an initiative in 2021 to identify and drain unpermitted ponds. The Arkansas River basin was targeted first, but the state engineer is “systematically reviewing ponds in several areas of Colorado where ponds without legal authorization have a substantial impact on the stream system.”

The problem appears to be most acute in the state’s eight groundwater basins, all of which are on the Eastern Plains and include the Ogallala Aquifer on the northeastern plains.

“This bill does not save everyone’s backyard pond. It does not allow people to dig new ponds because they want water near their house,” said Hisey.

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