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The modeling studies clearly show that when you pump wells in Colorado the primary party affected is the senior surface-water user in Colorado. much more so than any benefit to Kansas under the 1948 compact. You can't overlook that effect, and you can't do rule making. in my opinion, just dealing with the state line or compact issues. They are so intertwined that you have to deal with them together at one time. so the new rules that were filed with the water court in September of 1995 in fact deal with both. I will try to walk through some of the key parts of those rules with you so you can Wlderstand how we are attempting to bring about compact compliance and also deal with the issue of protection of senior vested water rights in Colorado. I would like to talk about the scope of these rules. What do they cover and what do they not cover? It is very clear that you Wlderstand that they are not totally comprehensive, covering every well in the Arkansas River Basin. They deal first of all with pumping of tributary groWldwater, so there are certain types of other groWldwater that are not affected and I will talk about those. The first are wells that divert non-tributary groWldwater. They are either decreed or permitted to be pumping non- tributary groWldwater. Certain designated groWldwater basins exist in the Arkansas River Basin -- the Southern High Plains designated basin, the Upper Big Sandy designated basin, and the Upper Black Squirrel designated basin. GroWldwater in these basins is not hydraulically cormected to the Arkansas River in any significant way. They are Wlder the jwisdiction of the Colorado Groundwater Conpnission. Wells in these areas are not subject to these rules. Certain small-capacity wells for domestic and stock watering are exempted from administration in 37-92-602 of the statutes Any wells that fall Wlder what we call the "exempt well" Wlder 602 are not subject to these rules, Certain wells in the Denver Basin aquifers operate Wlder rules promulgated in 1985. and as such they operate outside of the proposed new rules. They pump basically nontributary or not nontributary groWldwater from the Arapahoe. Laramie- Fox Hills, Denver or Dawson aquifers. Fmally, we allowed two other aquifers not to be included in these rules -- the Cheyerme and Dakota aquifers. They are located in the eastern part of the basin and used primarily for domestic supply, The cormection with the Arkansas River is very indirect, and so we felt we didn't have the information at this time to include those aquifers in these rules. A number of rural water associations in the La JWlta, Lamar, Las Animas area use these aquifers because of the quality. They are not subject to these rules. If you represent any of those areas. I want to make clear that if you have a Cheyerme or Dakota well you are not subject to the new rules, The rules are numbered 1 through about 18, and I want to talk about three that are the key components -- rules 3,4 and 5. ~ deals with the compact issue. How do we bring about compact compliance and stop depletions to usable state late flow? They have a geographic area that is very specific, It is the area that was modeled and studied in the litigation with Kansas, and it covers the valley fill and surficial aquifers between Pueblo and the state line. It involves post-compact irrigation well pumping, and basically the rule says that after April 1 of 1996 these wells cannot pump any longer, or in the alternative they can pump if they operate pursuant to a plan approved by the state and division engineers whereby depletions to usable state line flow are replaced. Rule 3 also talks about how we allocate that 1$,000 af of pre-compact pumping to the 700 or so wells that are pre-cornpact in nature. The rule clearly sets forth a procedure. We have published a table indicating how much each of those wells would be entitled to pump in the future with respect to the pre-compact pumping allowance. Copies are available through Steve Witte, the division engineer. The rule uses the Kansas hydrologic institutional model to determine how well we did in replacing depletions to the usable state line flow. That is the tool we are using in the litigation with Kansas that the Master has endorsed. After the end of a year, when all the information is available. the model will be run to determine if the offsets made available by the various groWldwater entities in fact did offset depletions to usable state line flow. If for some reason it did not, the shortage would be allocated among the wells on some basis of amount pumped, consumptive use, distance from the stream -- it is all spelled out in the rule, If there is a shortfall, we have to allocate the obligation to replace it, and Rule 3 deals with that. Arkansas River Basin Water Forum 24 "A River of Dreams and Realities"