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OQ-~~'~{2 1.1' .1 2.1.2 Water Administration and Rights The Colorado River Compact of 1922 apportioned the waters of the Colorado River Basin for use between the upper and lower basin states, The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948 has further apportioned the upper basin allocation (among the states of Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico), This compact further apportions the Yampa River Basin between Colorado and Utah and stipulates that the Yampa River at Maybell will not have a composite flow of less than 5 million af (mat) for any period of ten consecutive years. To date, the average annual yield is 1.135 maf, and the minimum 1 O-year yield is 9,1 maf, The amount of water that can be removed from the river is controlled by Colorado water law, An individual, corporation, or government agency can file for a water right to divert or store a certain amount of water for a given project like a reservoir or irrigation ditch, Water rights are granted with a "priority" date based on the time of filing, A water right with a senior priority date has precedence to divert water over a junior water right. Although the Yampa River Basin is relatively undeveloped in terms of potential water use, it is considered over-appropriated from a water rights perspective, The sum of water rights on the Yampa River is greater than the average annual flow measured at the Maybell gage, This has not been a problem to date because all of the projects with water rights have not been built. Many of these rights are conditional and have not yet been exercised, Conditional water rights are those which have been filed, but not developed, The priority date is based on the date of filing, provided that the filer shows due diligence in pursuing its development of the right. Other water rights have not routinely been exercised to their full decreed amounts due to relatively low demand for water in the basin, As a result, the mainstem water rights of the Yampa River have not historically been administered, although local administration takes place regularly on several tributaries, 2.1.3 Juniper Project Water Rights Several water development projects were earmarked for future development on the Yampa River based on an inventory completed by U,S, Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) in the late 1940s, The Juniper Reservoir was one such project. The Colorado River Water Conservation District (CRWCD) was granted the conditional water rights for this prolect in 1954. The Juniper Project has not progressed further than planning stages because of cost and environmental permitting issues. The Juniper Project water rights are believed to be the controlling water rights on the Yampa River due to the early priority date of the water right and its location downstream from junior water rights. The original decree for the Juniper Project water rights is Juniper Reservoir (844,000 at), Deadman Bench Canal, and a hydropower plant located approximately five miles upstream of Maybell. The Juniper Project water right could potentially consume 862,000 af of water per year, or 75 percent of the annual flow of the river at the Maybell gage, The CRWCD agreed to let water users with water rights junior to the Juniper Project water rights divert up to 65,000 af of water before the CRWCD enforced its senior water rights, Approximately 40,000 af are diverted annually under water rights junior to the Juniper rights, Many water users with water rights junior were not decreed until after the Drpft 07/28/99 4 Ayres Associates