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For those of)'Ou who think that merely by regulating the use of water and weDs there is somehow a government taking involved. let me tell )'Ou I think )'Ou are in error. The Colorado Constitution does not give )'Ou a right to a certain quantity of water. It is a usufructuary right Frrst, the water belongs to the people of the state subject to )'Our right to make a use of a portion in priority. If)'Ou have a well that is junior. you are not in priority if the result of pumping that well injures other more senior water users or users in the State of Kansas under the compact. .. Colorado. although unknowingly. allowed the compact to be violated, and Colorado has to solve the problem. We have a legal obligation to deal with what has happened between 1950 and the present In late October Kansas and Colorado stipulated that the amount of usable state line flow that had been depleted to the State of Kansas by users in Colorado was about 328.000 acre-feet for the period 1950 to 1985. We are negotiating with Kansas today to try to resolve the 1986 to 1994 values. Colorado. at some point, will have to repay Kansas for those depletions, in water or money. In January, Kansas will file a brief. Kansas will tell us what it thinks Colorado ought to do as a legal matter to redress that compact violation. Colorado will respond in May. and Kansas will reply in July. The Master will then hear arguments and decide. Those hearings will go on over the next several months to a year. If we fail to control post-compact well pumping, the Supreme Court and the Master will do it for us. Kansas has already asked to have a special federal river master appointed to run the river. The request has not been acted on, but if Colorado fails to come up with a program that adequately ensures the Master that Kansas will receive the water to which it is entitled under the compact. he will be forced to come up with his own remedy. and Kansas will push very hard for that remedy to be a federal official who has little interest in what goes on in Colorado and has. as a sole, driving purpose. the need to be sure that Kansas getS its water. Fmally, one other point - Colorado lives by compacts. We expect our neighbors - Texas, New Mexico. Kansas, Nebraska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah. Wyoming - to live by the terms of those compacts and to allow us to use as much water as we are entitled under those compacts. We have an equal obligation to comply with the compacts to which we are signatory. Arkansas River Basin Water Forum 21 itA River of Dreams and Realities"