DENVER – The political clouds in Colorado have parted in favor of allowing Coloradans to collect rain falling from their roofs.
Once a storm of controversy, the now-famous rain-barrel legislation cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday with bipartisan support. It heads to the full Senate, where the bill likely has the votes to finally pass after two years.
“The quest to legalize rain barrels has now reached its final stage,” said Pete Maysmith, executive director of Conservation Colorado.
“We are thrilled that the committee has recognized that rain barrels can be a powerful tool for educating Coloradans about our state’s water system and water conservation.”
The measure would allow Coloradans to keep up to two 55-gallon barrels to store precipitation. Water collected would be used on the residential property where it is stored, usually for things such as watering gardens.
Colorado is the only state where rain barrels are prohibited.
If the bill makes it through the Senate without amendments, it would head to the governor for his signature.
“Sometimes, not always, but every once in a while, Colorado functions like Great Britain said about the United States when we took so long to get into World War II ... that the United States could always be depended upon to do the right thing, but only after they had exhausted the other possibilities,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said. “This might be a place where that applies.”
The 6-3 vote Wednesday in the state Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee included support from Republican Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango. Republican Sen. John Cooke of Greeley also joined Democrats in supporting the bill.
Observers feared that the committee’s chairman, Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, would delay a vote in an effort to kill the legislation. But a week after he initially delayed the bill, he allowed the committee to vote.
“We have a product of good collaboration and open-mindedness,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs.
Last year, similar legislation failed in the waning hours of the legislative session.
Several amendments this year helped garner support from factions that ardently fight for water rights, including the Colorado Farm Bureau. As a result, the bill passed the House by an overwhelming 61-3 vote.
One amendment would require the Division of Water Resources to curtail the use of rain barrels based on a determination of injury to water rights.
Other amendments include stating that using a rain barrel is not a water right and requiring the state engineer to evaluate if the use of rain barrels impacts water rights across the state.
Critics fear the legislation would erode the state’s prior appropriations system, which grants water rights to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, despite residential proximity.
But a study by Colorado State University found that allowing 110 gallons of rainwater storage per household would not decrease surface runoff by any detectable amount.
Still, Sonnenberg, along with Sens. Randy Baumgardner of Hot Sulpher Springs and Ray Scott of Grand Junction, could not bring themselves to support the bill.
“My concern here is that if indeed we have rain barrels that may cause depletions ... the next person in line would be the one curtailed,” Sonnenberg said.
“That’s a concern for me given that agriculture has 85 percent of the water.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com