For the first time, the annual funding bill for Colorado water projects includes money to acquire in-stream water rights for environmental protection and to explore alternatives to

Landowners who want to lease or donate water to keep streams flowing can do so without fear of risking their water rights under a bill approved in a House committee Wednesday. 

The Arkansas Basin Roundtable wants some answers from state officials about why the Colorado Department of Water Resources is proposing agricultural efficiency rules.

Water watchers in the San Luis Valley have had a lot to keep them busy lately.

This week is a big one in the Colorado Legislature for efforts to bring Colorado into compliance with requirements to deliver Republican River Basin water into Nebraska and Kansas.

Two of the most profound decisions that the Colorado Supreme Court rendered in the past 10 years were those that established that water left in the stream is a beneficial use.

The government has chosen not to appeal a federal judge's September ruling throwing out an agreement governing the amount of water flowing in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The Interior Department had filed notice it might appeal the ruling, but withdrew the notice last week, clearing the way for work to determine how much water the river needs through the canyon to satisfy the needs of wildlife and human uses. The judge called the 2003 agreement forcing the Black Canyon Nation Park to give up its 1933 water right to the river without public involvement "nonsensical." He overturned the plan, which set a minimum flow of 300 cubic feet per second. The river's flows have changed dramatically since construction of the three dams in the Aspinall Unit upstream of the park was completed in the 1970s. Without the dams, the river flowed at up to 20,000 cubic feet per second during spring floods in the canyon.