Board seeks larger white-water role

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 26, 2006 at midnight

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Members of the state's top water board said this week that they may ask Great Outdoors Colorado for a larger role in how grants for white- water parks are awarded.

The news came at a two-day meeting of the Colorado Water Conservation Board in Denver. It's the latest indication of the growing tension between GOCO, as the independent agency is known, and the state-run water board.

Created by voters in 1992, GOCO is crafting new guidelines on its white-water park grants.

The agency awards millions of dollars of lottery funds to protect open space and enhance parks and recreational opportunities in the state.

It believes its grants can be made without engaging in the contentious issues around the white-water parks, including the amount of water they use.

White-water-park advocates see the battle as another attempt by Colorado's traditional water users - cities and farmers - to limit the use of water for recreational purposes, something the state's courts have upheld.

But water board members disagree, saying that they are simply trying to protect the state's scarce liquid resources.

At a meeting this week, they urged John Swartout, GOCO's executive director, to allow the water board to review the grants to ensure that they don't harm existing water rights holders.

It is a request GOCO, to date, has refused. At its meeting this week, water board members insisted that GOCO take another look at the cross-agency dilemma.

"I still maintain that the left hand has to know what the right hand is doing," said water conservation board member Eric Wilkinson. "Even though you're independent, you're still obligated to look out for the state's overall good."

But Swartout disagreed, saying that GOCO is required by its charter to act independently of the water board and to fund recreation projects as it sees fit.

"We are not subservient to the Department of Natural Resources," Swartout said. That department houses the water board.

"And recreation is our mission; we're not going to walk away from that," he said.

The water board, charged with regulating the streams in which the parks operate, has engaged in a number of lawsuits with cities over the use of water for recreation.

One of the board's key concerns is whether cities are claiming too much water for their kayak courses and, in the process, making it harder for other cities or farmers who use water from the same stream to manage their own supplies.

But cities such as Pueblo, currently in a legal battle with the water board, say that such concerns aren't warranted, in part because the water for the courses stays in the stream.

The CWCB is also angry that some cities that win GOCO grants to build the parks too often use the extra money to battle the board in water court over the thorny issues associated with the kayak courses.

Attorney Glenn Porzak, who has battled the water board successfully in a number of cases, said the board's latest efforts to influence GOCO's grant process is simply another attempt to stop construction of the parks.

"They are clearly overstepping their authority," Porzak said.

Comments wanted

• GOCO is accepting comments on guidelines for its white-water park grants until Monday, and plans to hold another public meeting Feb. 16.

• Information: 303-863-7522.

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