A number of water bills introduced by Sen. Mary Hodge have been signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Legislation was signed into law this month that will correct a glitch in Colorado water law that was threatening the value of senior water rights. Sponsored by Sen. Mary Hodge, D-Brighton, and Rep.

At a time when many cities and states in the West are grappling over water, a south-central Arizona Native American community has found itself in the enviable position of having rights to more water than it can use. The Gila River Indian Community established along the Gila River faced severe water shortages after the river was dammed upstream in the 1920s.

With some of the lowest stream flows on record for this time of year, Colorado water managers are wrangling every last drop and trying to make them all count. Upstream storage and diversions have exacerbated the low flows resulting from a meager snowpack and early runoff.

Gene Kammerzell owns water rights that were decreed in 1865 and have been in his family's name for 100 years — dating back to when his grandparents migrated from Russia to Colorado and established a family farm near Milliken, Colo.

This land is your land; this land is my land. And if a pair of proposed statewide ballot initiatives pass, the water will be too — irrespective of existing water rights. Richard Hamilton of Fairplay has been making the argument that water and its use should be at the discretion of all people in the state — not just those that the doctrine of prior appropriation ascribes rights to.