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The Master, after months of trial held in Pasadena, California, found, and the court confirmed, that of the three Kansas claims the Trinidad claim and the water storage claim for Pueblo Reservoir were wUounded and not proved and dismissed them both. In the third claim, that post-compact well pwnping in Colorado deprived Kansas of water, the Master found that Kansas had proved depletions in violation of the compact, although he didn't quantify how much depletion had occurred. Importantly, he also found that the State of Colorado and its water officials had been in good faith and had not set about trying to damage Kansas or to take water away from Kansas. They had intended to permit the use of unusable flows in the Arkansas River under the compact, and they did not believe that wells were creating a cognizable harm to the State of Kansas. That is important. That is why the Master will give Colorado a chance to come up with a solution in the future. That is why Colorado will have a say in how to redress that injury. The Master found that the injury existed, but it wasn't one that Colorado or Kansas understood or knew about until shortly before the litigation was filed. Judge Tracey did a wonderful job of talking about the evolution of Colorado water law and some of the important issues that have arisen. Remember, Colorado is a prior appropriation state. The Constitution authorizes water users to use water in accordance with their priorities. When there is insufficient water, more junior water rights have to be shut down, so seniors are entitled to use their supply. Water in Colorado is preswned to be tributary to streams and subject to the appropriation doctrine unless shown in a specific instance to be non-tributary and therefore nqt covered by the doctrine. As a result, wells in tributary formations, just like ditches, are subject to the constitutional doctrine of prior appropriation. That doctrine operates not against all water in the state - it operates against the water to which Colorado is entitled under an interstate compact. So, there is a limitation on how much water Colorado water users can divert within the priority system: Colorado finds itself with approximately 2,000 wells that are junior to our obligations to the State of Kansas. They also are very, very junior to many senior surface water rights and ditches that have existed in the Arkansas basin from the late 1860s and early 1870s. Under any decision of a Colorado court or the current decision of the United States Supreme Court those more junior wells should not be able to operate unless they replace any injury or depletion that they cause to water of the river which otherwise would be available to Colorado senior surface water rights under the Colorado Constitution or to the State of Kansas under the Arkansas River Compact. After the court decided that Colorado had in fact, although unknowingly, been in violation of the Arkansas River Compact, Kansas immediately sought to obtain an injunction requesting that wells in the Arkansas basin be immediately shut off and not be allowed to pwnp until such time as Colorado and the well owners had convinced the Supreme Court and the Master that Kansas would receive all of the water supply to which it was entitled. The Master, for what I think was good reason, said he would not grant that injunction, He said Colorado was found in violation but should be given a chance to propose a solution. Hal Simpson, the State Engineer, is responsible for the future solution. and I am not going to steal his thunder. I do want to say a couple of things, though. Both Colorado and Kansas, through their evidence, showed that the wells in the Arkansas basin were causing stream depletions which to some degree were depleting usable state line flows to which Kansas was entitled under the compact. The State of Kansas is entitled to the protection of the compact and the law of the State of Colorado, which embodies and encompasses the Arkansas River Compact. Colorado does not have a choice. h must enforce those laws so long as they remain on the books, and so we have to propose' a solution to the problem. A well permit is very similar to a driving license. It entitles you to drill a well, In that well is water. That water is subject to the constitutional doctrine of prior appropriation. You aren't entitled. simply because you have a well permit, to pwnp that water unless you are doing it in the priority system or in a way that does not impair senior water rights under the Colorado Constitution. You all have driver's licenses which the state gave you, but that doesn't mean you can speed. There is another law that says "no speeding," and if you speed or drive drunk you can lose your license. You can drill a well, but that doesn't give \IOU an ironclad ril!ht to DumD that well and take water that belongs to someone else in this state or the State of Kansas. That is the legal framework with which we are dealing here. Arkansas River Basin Water Forwn 20 itA River of Dreams and Realities"