Substitutions to HB 60 cleared the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee on Feb. 12 with a 5-1-1 vote.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. David Shallenberger, seeks to clarify and limit the state engineer’s responsibilities to matters directly related to water — specifically beneficial use, quantity, quality and availability.
Goal of the substitutions
Shallenberger spoke to the Senate on adopting the first substitute in the bill at the general session. “Some of the wording has been a little confusing as we’ve been talking with different conservation and environmentalist groups and some different parties … It helps to clarify and rewrite some of the language to make it a little clearer,” Shallenberger said.
He explained the purpose of the bill is to clarify the state engineer’s role. He stated that the current State Engineer Teresa Wilhemsen’s office has reviewed “more and more things that are not related to water.” Shallenberger said the bill will establish guidelines to limit the range of responsibilities to reviewing water issues only.
Shallenberger also explained that amendments to the bill were a “six-month publicly available process” and were in collaboration with the Water Task Force and passed unanimously out of the Water Commission.
Bill content
The bill addresses beneficial use, quantity, quality and availability on the topic of protests. The state engineer will review any protests under these categories. Shallenberger cited his conversation with the conservation nonprofit Trout Unlimited, where they said, “not a single protest [they’ve] ever had has not fallen into one of those categories.”
Shallenberger addressed concerns about the infringements on protest rights during the committee. “You [Senate chair] may have gotten some emails about this bill; none of those are true. It does not take away from people’s right to protest. This bill is designed to help the state water engineer deal with water engineer issues; other issues go to different divisions,” Shallenberger said.
Voting and the future
Rep. John Arthur, after his commendations, voted no and posed a series of questions on the bill. The questions are set to clarify topics of protest rights and the delegation of planning reviews on public welfare.
Shallenberger explained that the bill would not take away any rights from the people. He also reviewed the proposed plans on whether it would “prove detrimental to the public welfare,” would fall to the state engineer, or could be delegated to other divisions like the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) or Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for analysis.
“You can protest the application when it comes in, and [the state water engineer] has to review it. This does not change somebody’s ability to protest a bill. The litigation comes in on the backend. As with any lawsuit in any court, you need proper standing to show that you’ve been injured by that litigation,” Shallenberger said. “My understanding is that public welfare is part of the three things, quantity, quality and availability.”
