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. A hearing is scheduled Thursday before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy on Sen. Greg Brophy’s bill to drain Bonny Reservoir by converting state-held storage rights to state-held in-stream flow rights. “Passage of this bill will keep us from needlessly pumping 1.6 billion gallons of water a year out of the Ogallala Aquifer to offset the evaporative and seepage losses at Bonny Reservoir,” Brophy, R-Wray, said Monday. “We can’t value fish over farmers.” As of Dec. 31, 2007, Colorado is about 50,000 acre feet short of complying with the compact. Deputy State Engineer Ken Knox said at Bonny’s current level of 10,000 acre feet, about 3,500 acre feet is being lost to evaporation. The Colorado Water Conservation Board also is meeting this week to finalize the annual “projects” bill, which outlines water projects that are recommended to the Legislature for grants or low-interest loans funded through severance tax revenue. The Republican River Conservation District is seeking a $50 million loan to build a pipeline that would move water directly from the aquifer to the state line without evaporative losses.

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