March 07, 2016 11:14 AM UTC

Former Sen. Jim Isgar Dies

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Durango Herald’s Ann Butler reports on the death this past weekend of former Democratic Sen. Jim Isgar, a fixture in Southwest Colorado politics and all-important water policy:

Isgar had a background in water before he was appointed to the Senate in 2001 to finish the term of former Sen. Jim Dyer, who resigned to take a position with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. As a farmer and rancher in the Breen area, Isgar served on numerous water boards, including La Plata and Animas-La Plata conservancy districts, HH Ditch Co., including 25 years as president, and the Southwestern Water Conservation District.

Isgar would subsequently be re-elected twice to the Senate, heading the Senate Agricultural Committee, before President Obama appointed him director of Rural Development for Colorado under the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2009.

“Jim was a true Coloradan and a strong supporter of agriculture and water issues in the state,” said Bruce Whitehead, executive director of the Southwestern Water Conservation District. “Senator Isgar was well-known for his influence over state water law and policy, and many bills had to be ‘Isgarized’ prior to passing out of his committee.”

Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs wrote warmly about Sen. Isgar in 2013, when he received the Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s President’s Award:

The Democrat in Jim Isgar came alive at a young age when he traveled with his father to Washington, D.C., in 1962 and met President John F. Kennedy at the White House. He attended rural elementary schools in Hesperus, followed by junior high and high school in Durango while his mother, Anne, ran a family-owned motel there. Graduating in 1969 and setting off for the University of Colorado to study engineering, he soon returned to the farm and ranch to help as his father was recovering from his own bout with cancer. He completed his bachelor’s degree in accounting at Fort Lewis in 1973, became a Certified Public Accountant, studied taxation at Colorado State University for four quarters, and worked for an accounting firm in Longmont. He had been accepted to law school at the University of Denver in 1976, but his parents said “they would sell the farm if I didn’t come back and take it over,” he recalls…

During the first decade of the 21st century, a period of significant innovation in water legislation, Isgar sponsored, co-sponsored, or worked on virtually every successful water bill. These included the 2003 agricultural water rights leasing statute for instream flows during drought periods, as well as the 2001 recreational in-channel diversion statute permitting water rights for kayak courses. He credits the 2005 Colorado Water for the 21st Century Act, particularly its roundtable process, with accomplishing “better understanding of complicated legal and technical matters in all the river basins.”

Isgar had been battling a rare form of leukemia for several years. He was 64 years old.