{"id":106507,"date":"2016-02-24T02:34:14","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T09:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rain-barrel-legislation-passes-out-of-colorado-house-committee\/"},"modified":"2016-02-24T02:34:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T09:34:14","slug":"rain-barrel-legislation-passes-out-of-colorado-house-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rain-barrel-legislation-passes-out-of-colorado-house-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain barrel legislation passes out of Colorado House committee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A bill to allow Colorado residents to collect up to two barrels of rainwater passed out of a state House committee. The full House will now consider it.<\/span>Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 After a slippery ride, lawmakers on Monday advanced a measure that would allow Coloradans to collect rain water that falls on their roofs.<\/p>\n

The House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee backed House Bill 1005 by a vote of 10-2, after a more than two-hour hearing. It now heads to the full House for consideration.<\/p>\n

The measure is written similar to last year\u2019s bill, which died on the second-to-last day of the session after it failed to receive a Senate floor vote despite a last-minute effort to garner support.<\/p>\n

The bill would allow people to capture rain from their roof in up to two 55-gallon barrels for use in their garden or on their lawn.<\/p>\n

Sponsors of the bill are hopeful that they can muster enough support to drive it through the legislative process, especially following a study by Colorado State University in September that stated that allowing 100 gallons of rainwater storage per household would not decrease surface runoff by any detectable amount on a typical lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of it going into your windowsill, or possibly a sidewalk, you could use it where you see fit \u2026 on your tomato plants and your flower garden,\u201d said Rep. Jessie Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge, a co-sponsor of the bill.<\/p>\n

Critics raise concerns about eroding the state\u2019s prior appropriations system, in which water rights are granted to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, despite residential proximity.<\/p>\n

In an effort to address the water rights controversy, some rural lawmakers pushed an amendment that would have allowed the state engineer to intervene if complaints over water rights arise. But the amendment was defeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was mentioned that a lot of the opposition would go away if \u2026 the state engineer had the authority to intervene or had some oversight if necessary. \u2026 To me, this amendment actually does that. \u2026 I just think it would take a lot of the angst about this bill away,\u201d said Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio, who voted for the bill despite the amendment failing.<\/p>\n

Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, raised concerns with Colorado being a water provider among 18 states that have a prior appropriations system. He voted against the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not even talking the same thing here,\u201d Coram told supporters of the bill. \u201cWe\u2019re a headwater state. We\u2019re the rooftop. We run in every direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

State water officials did not take a formal position on the legislation. But James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, said the effort could help with a narrative on water conservation in the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of residential rainwater harvesting aligns with the CWCB\u2019s philosophy of promotion of education and water stewardship at a local level \u2026\u201d Eklund said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents could capture water in two 55-gallon containers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,738,13,167,303,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-environmental-issue","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-local-news-lead","tag-water-pollution","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106507"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}