Reforming laws to provide more flexibility in how water is used and shared in Colorado will be critical in meeting demands as the state’s population rapidly grows, according to agriculture, environmental and municipal water experts who spoke Tuesday in Denver.

Ranchers and growers in the Roaring Fork Valley and elsewhere in the Colorado River basin would have a new incentive for conserving water without jeopardizing their water rights under legislation moving forward in the Colorado Legislature. The drought-fueled measure, put forth by state Sen.

Senators took action Thursday to deflect a state Supreme Court ruling that could make it difficult to keep water in reservoirs – just as drought is tightening its grip on much of the state. The bill is among several this year that add up to the Legislature’s biggest push in years to conserve water and store it for dry years. Sen.

The agreement between Colorado and New Mexico that governs how water on the La Plata is shared is the La Plata River Compact, established in 1922. It is the oldest compact in the state.

Although water rights in Colorado have been separated from the land for years, there is a community interest that must be preserved when they change hands. “Water law is much more than a code in a courtroom,” Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs said Wednesday.

Gene Kammerzell owns water rights that were decreed in 1865 and have been in his family's name for 100 years — dating back to when his grandparents migrated from Russia to Colorado and established a family farm near Milliken, Colo.

The thought of sinking more than three dozen wells in the San Augustin Plains of western New Mexico and pumping out billions of gallons of water each year to meet demands miles away has hundreds of New Mexicans riled up. A group of rural residents, one of the state’s largest irrigation dis

In Colorado water is a separate property right that can be sold separately from the land. This is different from the Riparian Doctrine where the water rights are attached to the land that is adjacent to the stream or the river. Colorado administers water under the Prior Appropriation Doctrine.

Two starkly different views of the ability of seven states to divide the waters of the Colorado River were given at Colorado College last week. Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs marveled at how a river basin labeled by some early explorers as uninhabitable 150 years ago now supports 30 million people in seven states.