DENVER – Southwestern Colorado’s veteran state Sen. Jim Isgar isn’t being coy when he says he doesn’t know if he will be back at state Legislature next year to finish out his term.

He really doesn’t know.

Isgar, D-Hesperus, has been waiting for weeks to learn whether he will be named Colorado director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Rural Development. He apparently won’t know until the U.S. Senate confirms the appointment of South Dakota’s Dallas Tonsager as the USDA’s under secretary for rural development.

Nonetheless, tributes to Isgar flowed during the last day of the 2009 General Assembly, which concluded its 120-day session on May 6. Most of the accolades, which were prefaced by “if you leave,” noted Isgar’s long record of accomplishments on water and oil and gas issues.

“I told them ‘no’ but they kept doing it so I said ‘okay I’ll leave,’” Isgar said during a post-session interview that may or may not be his last.

While waiting to hear from Washington, Isgar will remain busy with chores on the family ranch, attending meetings in his district that most often are associated with water, and continue with legislative interim committees on water and tourism.

He acknowledged his departure from the Legislature would leave a gap in expertise on water issues.

“It’s problematic because I’ve been involved in every water bill for eight years,” Isgar said. “I’ve either carried them, killed them or amended them. I’ve always tried to provide flexibility without injuring senior water rights.”

The last major bill Isgar carried though to passage this session dealt with both energy production and water.

House Bill 1308, introduced by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, sets new ground rules for water produced from the development of coal bed methane gas wells.

“It probably was one of the most important bills of the whole session because it really is a new section in Colorado water law,” Isgar said. “We’ve been working on it for several months with the State Engineer’s office, the Water Congress, the oil and gas industry, and senior water rights holders.”

The new law, presuming the bill is signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, creates a process for determining whether produced water has a beneficial use and whether shallow wells that are used in energy production are on tributaries that can cause injury to senior water users.

Both Isgar and Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, agreed however, that it was the budget that defined the 2009 session.

“It was one of the more difficult sessions because we had three difference budgets,” Isgar said. “We had to do 08-09 (fiscal year) twice before we could do 09-10. It didn’t seem like we were ever done.”

Tipton evaluated the session from the perspective of a freshman lawmaker in the minority party.

“The majority wields the power and are able to drive their agenda,” Tipton said. “In my opinion, we’ve done a disservice to the people in terms of back-door tax increases, increasing the fees and on top of that extraordinary increases in the fines we are going to be paying for violating any laws.”

Tipton and other Republicans complained most bitterly about the increases in car registration fees to raise more money for road and bridge construction. He would have like to see more effort to increase government efficiency and reduced bureaucracy.

“I’m a lot more fore keeping money in the pockets of taxpayers than growing government,” Tipton said. “It was a campaign issue for me and I expect it will be again in the 2010 elections.”

Tipton said he was not interested in running for Isgar’s District 6 Senate seat, deferring instead to Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango as the presumptive Republican candidate.

“I’m happy where I’m at,” he said.