GOLDEN — In winter, Mathew Ryan gets his thrills from snowboarding in Colorado’s mountains. With the High Country snow melting and summer right around the corner, the self-employed contractor is already practicing rolls and turns in his kayak.

“I don’t own a television so I have to find something to entertain me,” Ryan, 36, said as nearby Clear Creek rushed through Golden’s whitewater recreation park on a recent spring day.

Six years ago, this Denver suburb nestled against the foothills of the Rockies won the right to use up to 450,000 gallons per minute of creek water for the park, which includes hanging gates for kayakers and underwater walls and rocks to create rapids and eddies.

But the park here and elsewhere around Colorado have touched off a debate that has yet to be settled: How much water should be set aside for kayakers, rafters and tubers to enjoy as the state, like others around the arid West, try to keep more water on hand for droughts and a booming population?

It’s a fight that pits old Colorado against a new one where recreation isn’t just a hobby but a passion rivaling work in importance. Mountain towns, suburbs like Golden and even bigger cities like Pueblo see whitewater parks as a way to boost their economies.

Unlike agricultural irrigation, water used for whitewater parks stays in the river and flows to users downstream. However, water set aside for recreation would still trump any move to develop reservoirs or swap water upstream.

Jerry Mallett, a Chaffee County commissioner and an Arkansas River guide, said existing water rights have always taken precedence over newer rights, and it’s not fair to treat recreational water differently. He said each year recreation on the Arkansas — rafting and kayaking as well as fishing — brings in some $80 million to a county where 11 percent of people live below the poverty line.

“Those thirsty people aren’t even there yet,” he said, referring to concerns about development. “Why destroy the economy of one region in order to benefit another?”

That sentiment was echoed by Tom Hartman, Golden’s public works director. He said there must be a balance between exhausting the state’s water supply for development and enjoying it.

“We don’t just live here to work. We live here because it’s beautiful and there’s things to do outside,” he said.

After Golden, Breckenridge and Vail all were granted decrees for whitewater parks — decrees that were upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court — the state Legislature began looking at regulation rules in 2001.

Under a law passed that year, recreation officially became a “beneficial use” under state water law. It also set up a process by which governments must submit a water rights application to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which then makes a recommendation to a water court.

The law says parks should be limited to water that provides a “reasonable recreation experience” — a definition no one seems to be able to agree on.

The terminology was at the heart of the dispute over an application for a park on the Gunnison River, the first case to test the new law.

Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court said the water board overstepped its authority in recommending less water than requested. It sent the case back for another analysis. Gunnison area water officials want permission to take up to 1,500 cubic feet per second, depending on the time of year. That could affect how much water is available to residents and developers along the heavily populated Front Range.

This year, state lawmakers considered limiting future whitewater parks to 350 cubic feet of water per second, or about 157,500 gallons of water per minute (enough water to supply about 1,400 families for a year). The House killed the plan after some Front Range lawmakers joined the opposition.