DENVER—Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, said he abandoned his bill seeking to drain Bonny Reservoir on Thursday to give state officials more flexibility to negotiate with other states in the Republican River compact.
At his request, the Senate voted to postpone a vote on the measure (Senate Bill 28) until after the end of this year’s legislative session, effectively killing the bill.
Farmers in northeastern Colorado had asked for the reservoir to be drained because water evaporating from it is being charged against Colorado’s share of the river. They want to reduce the number of wells that may have to be shut down to comply with the compact.
Brophy said officials with the Department of Natural Resources have assured him that they will strongly consider the needs of farmers in deciding what to do next.
In a letter Wednesday, the department’s deputy director, Mike King, told Brophy that draining the reservoir was one of a number of options the state was considering to bring the state into compliance with the compact.
“Absolutely nothing is ‘off the table’,” King wrote.
Brophy said he would reintroduce the reservoir bill next year if the department doesn’t come up with a fair solution.
The reservoir, near Hale just west of the Kansas border in Yuma County, was built by the federal government to prevent flooding in Nebraska and Kansas and doesn’t provide irrigation water. Colorado has been falling short of its compact obligation by about 11,000 acre feet each and about 40 percent of that is caused by the water that evaporates or seeps out of the reservoir.
