“Colorado water law declares that the state of Colorado claims the right to all moisture in the atmosphere that falls within its borders and that “said moisture is declared to be the property of the people of this state, dedicated to their use pursuant” to the Colorado constitution. According to the constitution, water must be appropriated according to priority of appropriation. As a result, in much of the state, it is illegal to divert rainwater falling on your property expressly for a certain use unless you have a very old water right or during occasional periods when there is a surplus of water in the river system. This is especially true in the urban, suburban, and rural areas along the Front Range. This system of water allocation plays an important role in protecting the owners of senior water rights that are entitled to appropriate the full amount of their decreed water right, particularly when there is not enough to satisfy them and parties whose water right is junior to them.”
I’m in Colorado Springs, CO but this applies to most of Colorado. I guess it stems from the fact we are first users of the water and have sold a good portion of our water rights to others.
We get our water form snow melt and send water downstream for everyone else. Colorado’s water rights law says first in time has the rights, some date back to the 1850.
I guess technically from what I read if you divert water from the river you have to put enough back in to make up for what you diverted.
I think it’s one of those quirky laws that I don’t believe they enforce much, Now if you have 400 around you property and were filling up your own lake someone might take notice…
