A pointed "no thanks" for me on Colorado's digital ID. And ring the bell 'cause school's back in on water.
That'll be a "no thanks" for me Bob. I do not trust the government with my data. Hell, I don't want them to have it at all!
The Reason article below details a national trend about digital ID's, but a careful reader will note that Colorado is one of the forerunners in the trend.
What is a digital ID? If you're older (like me) and don't have a smartphone (also like me), you may have never heard it, but you can actually get a valid, electronic ID on your phone so you needn't bother with that little rectangle of plastic.
If that makes you a bit uncomfortable for all the potential for mischief, you are (again) like me.
Take a look at the first screenshot. It's an extended quote from the article. I underlined the things that stuck out to me and that I wanted to draw your particular attention to.
I can summarize it more succinctly, however.
I do not care what they say about how safe it is. I do not care what their privacy policies are and how secure they say they are. Mistakes happen, and people are not angels.
Just like abstinence is the only 100% safe birth control method, keeping your ... data .... out of the government is the only way to prevent something bad happening.
This isn't pie in the sky either. Take a look at screenshot 2 and the second link below. Not that long ago, the CO Dept of Education had a data breach.
Yep. That's why you can mark me down as a no thank you.
https://reason.com/2023/07/25/government-wants-to-control-your-digital-identity/
https://www.cde.state.co.us/dataprivacyandsecurity
Remedial Water Class 1A
Class is back in session and in this installment I want to keep scratching at the pre-req's. In particular, I want to talk over water rights.
No fancy preambles here, let's jump right in.
There are likely some complications I'm skipping over here, but the legal tradition about water rights we inherited from English common law is what is known as Raparian Law. In broad strokes Raparian Law says that a landowner whose land borders water has a right to use that water.
It may have some differences state by state (under California's original law, according to the first link below, "... owners of land that physically touches a water source have a right to use water from that source that has not been deemed appropriated by another party."), but the overall concept holds. If your land touches the water, you can use it.
In the more arid sections of the country, where water is more scarce, I hope you can see how this kind of a system could cause problems. The supply of water in places with Raparian Law is not a problem like it is here; it would be really easy to run out, leaving everyone downstream squawking. This means (at the very least--my guess is that history is replete with tales of people physically harmed over water) lots of work for the legal system and angry people.
So Colorado follows the ironically titled "Colorado Plan" (see the second link below). It's also sometimes known as the "Prior Appropriation Doctrine". You're welcome to read up on all the details and the legal citations in that second link, but I'll give you a quick rundown.
All surface water and tributary** ground water in Colorado is apportioned by what is called "first in time, first in right". In other words, if you were here first, you get first crack at the water--with, of course, some exceptions.
For example, my area, around Sterling Colorado has water rights that predate statehood by a few years. I forget the exact date, but it's close to 1873 so let's go with that. Aurora, CO which is also on the South Platte has less-senior rights. I don't know the date there.
In a wet year when there's plenty of water for everyone, nobody has any problems. You get what you need and everyone's wet and happy. In times of scarcity, if there is NOT enough to go around, Sterling CO which has the senior water right gets all of its share before Aurora gets theirs. That's the law.
Now, there are some wrinkles to this, so I'll quote the second link on Colorado's law (saving space by cutting out the decisions listed):
"It should be noted, however, that the Colorado Constitution states that during times of shortage, domestic water use has preference over all other uses, and agricultural use has preference over manufacturing use during such times. Additional exceptions to this priority order occurs when there is an approved replacement water supply plan in place allowing for out-of-priority diversions or because of a statutory exemption from administration."
For example, Aurora could take more water than they might otherwise be allowed as long as they have a plan in place to somehow make up the loss to the more senior Sterling rights.
Okay, so first in time gets first use (or at least the right of refusal) makes sense enough, but there is one more wrinkle on this. The location matters too.
Look at my drawing. It has a mountain whose runoff feeds a river. There are three users on this river, A, B, and C with the given ages of their water rights. By the legal framework we operate here in Colorado, User B should get first crack, followed by A, followed by C.
Let's say, however, that we had a lean year and User B had to enforce his rights against A. A doesn't get as much water, but by the rules neither should C.
The thing is, water flows. It moves. And after B has used his water (say he's a farmer and he irrigated his fields), that water either ran off the field or it went into the ground and became tributary groundwater which flowed back downhill to the river. Remember this about rivers: they are the local low spots and water finds low spots by either staying on the surface or moving just underneath it in the alluvium. Either thing will affect the flow of the river since you'll either add to the stuff up top or you'll add to the water table and push up on the stuff on top.
What this means is that the river, by the time it reaches User C, now has enough flow that, even though Cs junior to A and B, she can get water out for her farm. In other words, who was first matters but water don't follow your rules man and thus it can scoot around the priority rules to complicate things.
Lastly, water rights are transferrable. You can sell them and the priority will move with the new owner. In other words, if Sterling got a wild hair (God I hope not!) and sold its water rights to Aurora, the rights Aurora got would still have priority to 1873.
Your water right, in order to try and stop speculation, must also have a buyer with an intended "beneficial use" for it when you go to sell. The beneficial use need not be the original purpose for which the right was established, but it has to have some use and has to go to the party that will put it to that use. E.g. you could sell your water that you used to use to water cows to a developer who then uses it to water the humans in his suburb, but you can't just sell it to Bob from New York who has no planned use and is clearly just biding his time til a thirsty metro area comes calling.
Now, this doesn't stop speculation. I could see someone being savvy enough to be a speculator but perhaps lease the land to a farmer to grow crops on so they could say the water is being put to use while they wait to cash in, but there's a limit to how much you can try to stop speculation before you run into problems of tamping down on people selling what they have a right to sell.
I hope this was helpful. Please put any corrections or additions or comments in the comments section. We're close to done with the pre-req's I want to touch on. I think the last of the Remedial Water 1A will be on water compacts.
Then it's a look at the San Luis Valley.
**In brief, tributary groundwater is groundwater that has the ability to affect the behavior of surface water, non tributary groundwater doesn't affect surface water (much). I included definitions and pictures in the three screenshots attached. They are from the third link below which is another resource.
https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/riparian-rights
https://waterknowledge.colostate.edu/water-management-administration/water-rights/
https://waterknowledge.colostate.edu/hydrology/groundwater-resources/#1528235308978-445fa642-39fb
Related:
It is legal in Colorado to have up to 110 gallons of rain storage capacity for homeowners (see my set up attached).
I once asked a farmer friend of mine whether or not he could do similar. I.e., why not take the low spot of his land, dig it out, make a reservoir to catch rain and run off and then pump it back onto the crops again.
Turns out this is not allowed for farmers. It is against the law for them to store up, recapture or otherwise keep any of the water coming off their fields.
This includes water that they pumped out of the ground (recall that tributary underground water is no different than surface water legally).
