Colorado’s unique water laws mean the rain that falls on individual residential roofs and gardens usually belongs to someone else. Many transplanted gardeners from other states are shocked to discover their Colorado garden transplants are not allowed to be watered with captured rain. If it passes, a bill in the state Legislature would change that by legalizing rain barrels in residential neighborhoods.House Bill 15-1259 proposes that residents on municipal water systems would be able to use two rain barrels, totaling 110 gallons. Colorado and the national media widely publicized the House vote in favor of the bill. However, as of press time, the bill was still tabled in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy. Unless HB 1259 passes a vote of the full Senate and is signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper, rain barrels wonít have their day in the sun.A 2009 law allowed landowners with their own permitted well to apply for a rooftop collection permit. Would-be gardeners who lived in areas served by water utilities, metro districts or shared neighborhood wells were not included in that bill.State water conservation officials and local metro districts expect legalized rain barrels will only have a symbolic effect on water use in the state. ìIf there is any impact on water use, it would be minimal,î said Lynne Bliss, president of Woodmen Hills Metropolitan District. ìIf the bill goes through, we’d certainly encourage residents to take advantage of it.îìWe see it as a tool to create a mindset change that needs to happen about how people think about water,î said James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. ìWe want to make sure people have laser-like focus on conservation around the state, regardless of their uses.îThe prior appropriation doctrine that underlies Colorado’s water law states that the first person to physically take water from a stream or aquifer and place that water into beneficial use has the first right to use water within that system, according to the Colorado Division of Water Resources. The legal assumption is that rain that falls on residential land would have eventually flowed downstream or soaked into aquifers for the senior water rights holders’ use. Therefore, the rain water legally belongs to the senior water rights holder, not the residential land owner.Proponents of the bill expect that only about 10 percent of Colorado households will purchase rain barrels, Eklund said. ìIt’s more illustrative of our needs to continually look at how we innovate and conserve without injuring senior water rights holders,î Eklund said. ìPeople see it (rain barrels) as injuring downstream users. But our engineering is getting good enough to show that water being held up temporarily in a barrel is not going to injure downstream users.î
