HB 14-1005 Summary

• Amends Colorado water law to allow owners of ditches, canals, or feeders to relocate the diversion point upstream without filing a formal change of water right application when natural stream channels become cut out, lowered, or otherwise altered.

• Permits water right owners to use condemnation proceedings to obtain right-of-way for relocation, with the same process available for constructing a new ditch.

• Maintains the priority date and water rights of the original diversion point despite physical relocation of the structure.

• Requires that any relocation must not physically interfere with existing absolute or decreed conditional water rights of other users.

• Applies retroactively to all changes in points of diversion made before, on, or after the effective date of this act.