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.01 ~> ~;~ , Major Physical, Legal, and Institutional Characteristics :::.; .'1 (2) is in areas not adjacent to continuously flowing natural streams, wherein groundwater withdrawals have constituted the principal water usage for at least 15 years prior to the date of the first hearing on the proposed designation of the basin (37-90-103 (6) (a), C.R.S.). ;f~] Designated groundwater basins are fundamentally legal-political boundaries and are not necessarily coincident with hydrologic boundaries. The Ground Water Commission (GWC) is responsible for the initiation, protection, and transfer of groundwater rights. The Rules and Regulations for Management and Control of Designated Ground Water (CCR 410-1, May 1,1992) adopted by the GWC, govern the administration of groundwater rights. ., .;, " c.;! Ground water in Colorado is presumed to be tributary to natural streams. Litigation has established that the aquifers in the San Luis Valley are, in fact, tributary (American Water Develooment. Inc. v. Citv of Alamosa. et a!., 874 P2d 352 (Colo. 1994)), and there has been no other determination by Colorado courts or officials that there is any water within the Colorado portion of the Rio Grande Basin that would be administered under any legal mechanism other than the constitutional doctrine of prior appropriation. Since the passage of the Water Determination and Administration Act of 1969, the waters of surface streams and all tributary ground water have been administered by decree and priority date as an integrated system (David W. Robbins, comment on draft; report). ,) '. The Water Right Determination and Administration Act of 1969 allows the creation of augmentation plans, defined as "A detailed program to increase the supply of water available for beneficial use... by the development of new or alternative means or points of diversion, by a pooling of water resources, by water exchange projects, by providing substitute supplies of water, by the development of new sources of water, or by any other appropriate means." The basic intent of the plans is to assure the preservation of senior water rights as further rights are granted for developments. Augmentation plans introduce the depletion replacement concept, by devising schemes that obtain other waters and deliver them to the river at the time and place that the injury, or lack of water, otherwise would be felt. Augmentation becomes important insofar as Article XVI, Section 15, of the Colorado Constitution establishes the right of Colorado citizens to appropriate unappropriated water and, in effect, establishes water rights as vested property rights subject to the same protection as other interests in real property. Because senior water rights have a vested property interest in 15 (~.2895