Gov. Bill Ritter has signed a bill that extends the deadline for companies to get water permits for their natural-gas and oil wells, The Durango Herald reports. Senate Bill 165 gives the companies until Aug. 1, instead of the end of this month, to get their permits in order.

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By Debi Brazzale, COLORADO NEWS AGENCY

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers wants to send a message to Congress and President Obama asking them to reconsider federal policy that has put a clamp on some current as well as some prospective water projects in Colorado.

The policy that Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, wants Congress to look at involves a requirement that federal stimulus dollars comply with the Davis-Bacon Act–a 1931 law that says prevailing wages must be paid for labor on most federally funded public works projects.   Harvey said that the problem is not with Davis-Bacon but with the EPA’s interpretation–that the new rules apply retroactively to water projects, a move that some say was too swiftly applied.

“Regardless of how anyone feels about Davis-Bacon, there are some discussions that should have happened,” said Harvey. He said Senate Joint Resolution 18, which he presented today to the Senate Committee on Business, Labor and Technology, initiates that conversation.

Hundreds of water projects in Colorado are generally paid for by a revolving fund of federal and state dollars that is loaned out and repaid over time. Federal money in the revolving fund had not historically been subject to the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act—until 2009, when Congress declared that the prevailing-wage provision would apply to all stimulus dollars spent, even retroactively.

SJR 18 states that the new interpretation, “will jeopardize or subject to costly renegotiation numerous existing contracts that have already been signed or are about to be signed …” for water projects around the state.

The problem, said Kevin Bommer of the Colorado Municipal League, who came to testify in support the resolution, is not about prevailing wages or about future projects, but about whether the new conditions Congress applies to stimulus money that is doled out for water projects should be applied retroactively to the projects that were already on the table but not yet funded.

“To say that this applies to projects that weren’t finalized was totally unfair for the folks who were in the middle of the process,” said Bommer. “We’re not asking for an up or down vote on Davis-Bacon…..what we’re asking for is fundamental fairness.”

Colorado has received about $34.4 million for clean drinking water projects and about $31.3 million for clean water projects in federal stimulus money.  According to the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority, the cost for meeting the Davis-Bacon requirements for metro area projects would increase 4 to 5 percent per project and 20 to 25 percent n rural areas.

The final committee vote on whether or not to move the resolution forward has been put on hold until next week.

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A bill that opponents say would undermine senior water rights first died, then was resurrected and gained preliminary approval in the House on Tuesday, the Pueblo Chieftain reports. Sponsored in the House by Rep. Kathleen Curry, U-Gunnison, SB52 seeks to honor already permitted wells in the event that the Colorado Ground Water Commission redraws boundaries of the state’s eight existing designated groundwater basins. Designated groundwater basins generally are considered nontributary, or at least not adjacent to major streams and rivers. They may include municipal, industrial and agricultural uses.

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Legislators decided Wednesday they had gone to the well one too many times in an attempt to balance their budget, The Durango Herald reports. The House turned back an attempt to drain the final $19 million out of a fund used to build water projects.

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The Colorado House of Representatives on Tuesday approved HB 10-1188, clarifying the rights of commercial rafters, by a vote of 40 to 25. The bill will now go on to the Colorado Senate for review, the Aspen Daily News reports. “Today’s vote shows that 1188 is a bipartisan solution,” said Ben Davis, spokesman for the Colorado River Outfitters Association, who noted that the House Minority Leader, Republican Mike May, voted for the bill. “Everyone wants to see Colorado’s rivers stay open for business.”

In other coverage:

The Pueblo Chieftain: A bill that allows rafters to go aground on private property passed the House on Tuesday and awaits the governor’s signature to become law. Sponsored by state Rep. Kathleen Curry, unaffiliated-Gunnison, HB1188 sparked debate over commercial rafters’ rights to travel public waterways and the rights of property owners.

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A bill that would have made the wind blowing across your land a private property right unto itself was tabled indefinitely last week after a state study said the bill would have created a new way to tax landowners, but its sponsor says “severing” wind rights still has legs, the Coloradoan reports. House Bill 1158, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, was shelved, but Gardner said Friday that landowners on the Eastern Plains are starting to deed away their wind rights and the law isn’t clear about how that figures into property rights in Colorado.

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The Colorado House approved House Bill 10-1188 on a voice vote Friday to clarify that commercial rafting companies have the right to float down a historically run stretch of river, even if they have incidental contact with rocks and the river banks, and that they have the right to portage across private property to avoid hazardous obstacles in the river. Third and final reading of the bill is expected to take place on Monday.

Other coverage:

Colorado Statesman: Lawmakers took the first step in deciding whether commercial outfitters have the right to float through private property Monday when the House Judiciary Committee gave House Bill 1188 a favorable recommendation after nearly six hours of testimony from river outfitters, landowners, district attorneys and water law experts.

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Video: KDVR

As if Colorado water law weren’t complicated enough, the right to take a rafting trip down the Animas River might hinge on how far upstream boats could sail in England in the reign of King James I. At least that was a question lawyers raised Monday night when debating a bill that would help river-rafting companies, The Durango Herald reports.

From the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: Rafting companies would be allowed to cross private land whether property owners like it or not under a bill that won approval in a House committee Monday. House Bill 1188, introduced by Rep. Kathleen Curry, U-Gunnison, stemmed from a recent announcement from a Texas developer, Lewis Shaw, that he no longer would allow two rafting companies to traverse two miles of his land along the Taylor River.

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State Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R–Sterling, Friday was successful in securing the necessary votes to defeat a “basin of origin” water bill that he says would have hurt farmers along the South Platte, the Sterling Journal-Advocate reports. “If this bill passes, you just as well paint a big red target on the back of farmers in eastern Colorado,” Sonnenberg argued. Rep. Sal Pace (D-Pueblo) introduced HB 1159 which would have made mitigation a requirement when water was transferred from one division to another. The bill lost by a 40-21 vote.

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Western Slope legislators got a lesson in math Friday when the House voted down a bill on water transfers. House Bill 1159 would have required cities that want to import water from far away to negotiate with local water districts to minimize the impacts, The Durango Herald reports. The bill would have put Western Slope water districts in a stronger position when Front Range cities come looking for water in future years. “There are damages when water is moved,” said Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, the bill’s sponsor.

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