HB 14-1026 Summary

• Authorizes "flex use" water rights that allow applicants to change irrigation water uses to any beneficial use without pre-designating the specific end use, provided implementation includes fallowing, regulated deficit irrigation, reduced consumptive use cropping, or similar alternatives to permanent cessation of agricultural irrigation.

• Defines "flex consumptive use" as the fully consumptive portion of water quantified through a water court change-in-use decree or substitute water supply plan approval entered or approved on or after June 1, 2014, including quantified historical diversions, consumptive use, and return flows.

• Requires flex use decrees and substitute water supply plan approvals to include terms and conditions that prevent material injury to other vested water rights, establish fixed delivery points, and require applicants to replace historical return flows in time, place, and amount.

• Mandates that flex use decrees condition approval on continued irrigation of a portion of the property served by the water right, with the flex use becoming nullified if irrigation of the entire property is discontinued for more than three consecutive years.

• Takes effect June 1, 2014.