Will You Repeat Your Programming As Temporary Caretakers on The Land, Building Your Temporary Dream Life, Or Will You Instead Create Something On Your Land For Eternity?

Joyce’s report on water rights in Colorado:

– Water rights for holding are generally Surface Rights - they are "Senior Rights." The older the rights the more senior they are. Water can only be held for future use, and that future use must still meet all the recovery or return flow requirements. 

Prior Appropriation Law is written into the Colorado Constitution.  That means that the first person to appropriate un-appropriated water has the senior right to that water.  The following appropriators each fall into line below the most senior appropriator.

– Water appropriations are given for Domestic, Ag, Industrial, in that order.

– Flow rights have several levels determined by pecking order and source (river, tributary, ditch, aquifer). Return flow is typically 45%. 55% is used by people, plants and in aspiration into the air.

– There is a Three states agreement for water recovery program (to support ecology and population growth).  This agreement effects some existing rights and all new requests for water rights.

– New water appropriations can be made for previously Unappropriated water (if you can find any).

– 35 acre rule in Colorado is to regulate surface water usage (also read as: protect senior rights holders). At 35 acres you are able to pump from a well enough water to irrigate up to one acre of land as well as use in household, OR you can get a livestock permit which allows you to draw groundwater to feed a livestock tank ONLY.

– Less than 35 acres allows ground water to be drawn for indoor use only (no outside faucets). All outside water must either be delivered or drawn from an extremely deep ground source.

Water usage: Based on current agriculture methods and human use.

One corn plant requires 54 gallons of water per season.

One milk cow requires 5,475 gallons of water per year.

One horse requires 3,650 gallons of water per year.

One hog requires 1,500 gallons of water per year.

One acre of sugar beets requires 651,702 gallons of water per season

One acre of alfalfa requires 488,776 gallons of water per season.

One human who lives in an urban environment needs about 54,750 gallons of water per year (this includes average city uses such as industrial, commercial, fire protection, etc.).

One human who lives in a rural environment needs about 12,000 gallons of water per year.

ditch/reservoir shares = $6000 - 40,000 per share.

River rights = $1,000,000-5,000,000 for senior rights that allow for irrigation, some holding ponds, and household water for a community.

Surface rights must be treated before allowable as potable water.

Wells dug from deep enough do not need treated.

River water running through land can be collected by hand freely but cannot be diverted in any way without appropriate rights.

Ditch water cannot be collected in any way unless shares are owned.

One CFS = one cubic foot of water flowing every second

One CFS of flow = 448.8 gallons a minute.

One CFS for one hour = one acre Inch (the amount required to cover an acre of land with an inch of water)

One CFS for 12 hours = one (.991) acre foot (the amount required to cover an acre of land with one foot of water)

One CFS for 24 hours = two (1.983) acre feet

An irrigation = six inches (generally) of water on each acre. This will usually penetrate 4-6" deep.

One CFS = 38.4 miner’s inches (the amount of water that will flow through a hole of a given size at a given pressure) in Colorado. In other western states, one CFS equals 40-50 miner’s Inches.

One acre foot of water = 325,851 gallons

One acre foot of water = 43,560 cubic feet

One cubic foot of water = 7.48 gallons

Additional information at http://www.watercolorado.com/ or google "water rights - Colorado" for several more references.