Colorado’s state engineer is streamlining a water-supply plan
review process for local developers and Douglas County
planners.
Kevin Rein, Denver Basin team leader for the Division of Water
Resources at the Office of the State Engineer, said a document
outlining requirements for water supply plans has been given to
Douglas County planning staff.
For the most part, water supply requirements are spelled out in
Colorado statute, but Rein said it is neither fair nor effective
for him to wait for developers, especially some small developers,
to figure out what his office needs.
Before supplying local governments with the requirements, Rein
said the state engineer was sometimes getting information
piecemeal.
Developers may not be uncooperative, but they may not quite know
what information they’re supposed to send in, he said. The idea of
the review process is for everyone to benefit from having all the
information in one place.
“The memo spells out in more detail what the state engineer’s
office needs in water supply plans under different scenarios,” Rein
said.
The document has no negative impact on developers or planning
staff, he said. With information from the memo, they know up front
what they need to submit so the state engineer can evaluate the
water-supply plan for water adequacy and make sure it doesn’t cause
material injury to senior vested water rights as specified in state
statute.
“Douglas County has a keen awareness of water supply issues and
they may have good information to give to developers,” he said.
“But across the state, for all the counties, this is one
consolidated source of information about what the state engineer
requires.”
Peter Italiano, director of Douglas County Community
Development, said the state engineer is trying to make a statement
to districts, through local governments, they actually need to
comply with state statute.
The state engineer provides a checklist asking how much firm
water does a district have, how much is committed and how much is
left over to serve a proposed development, Italiano said.
Steve Koster, Douglas County planner, said hopefully developers
could cut down the time it takes to get through the planning
process.
“They will know ahead of time, in a concrete format, what the
state engineer’s office needs,” Koster said.
Contact Kiersten J. Mayer at
kmayer@ccnewspapers.net.