A bill to legalize household rain barrels bogged down Thursday in the same place where it got stuck a year ago, the state Senate Agriculture Committee.

Committee chairman Jerry Sonnenberg, a Republican from Sterling, tabled the bill after a list of people testified for it, including organizations that supported it a year ago.

Sonnenberg tabled the bill last year and never brought it up for another hearing. This year he pledges that there will be a vote, “even if I vote no.”

This year House Bill 1005 drew Republican support in the House after Rep. Jessie Danielson

added two amendments Sonnenberg had said were critical.

Danielson co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Daneya Esgar of Pueblo and Sen. Mike Merrifield of Colorado Springs.

Sonnenberg said, first, rain-barrel users needed to recognize Colorado water law’s pecking order of water rights, known as the prior-appropriation system.

Sonnenberg also wants the state engineer’s office to maintain oversight, so in times of drought rain barrels can be curtailed.

Kevin Rein, the deputy state engineer over water supply and litigation, told Sonnenberg Thursday that regulating rain barrels would be difficult.

Beyond checking yards to find the rain barrels, engineers would have to determine if shutting those barrels off would increase water for water rights holders elsewhere.

“It gets more difficult than just checking back yards,” he said.

That gave Sonnenberg pause.

He said that without meaningful enforcement “it would make the farmer pay for that depletion rather than rain barrels. That’s outside the prior-appropriation system, and I haven’t figured out how I’m going to deal with that now.”

Water law experts say rain-barrels are only technically illegal, because proving they injure the water rights of other users is nearly impossible.

Nearly all of the water would be absorbed in the ground by the downspout or in the ground in the garden, a Colorado State University analysis indicated.

“We do not think any changes to the water cycle could be accurately quantified or measured,” said Chris Olson, a researcher and program manager at the Colorado Stormwater Center at CSU.

“The water is going to be infiltrated or evaporated … The only difference is the timing, a day, maybe two, before the rain barrel is emptied.”

Garin Vorthmann, who represented the Colorado Farm Bureau, testified earlier that the powerful organization supports the legislation now that it includes the House compromises.

“It’s time to find a resolution to this ongoing conversation,” she told the Senate committee.

Danielson expressed disappointment but patience about the Senate logjam.

“I respect Sen. Sonnenberg’s decision to take a close look at this,” she said.

“I am hopeful that we, along with rain barrel supporters such as the Farm Bureau, will be able to make rain barrels a reality.”