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Yuma County Water Authority Public Improvement District Agenda Item 26d November 10 , 2008 Page 5 of 7 North Fork Water Rights Structure Decreed Diversion 4 cfs Laird Ditch 12 cfs Pioneer Ditch 15 cfs 2 cfs Holy Joe Canal & Reservoir 1 cfs Pierce Miller Ditch 2.5 cfs F D Johnson Ditch 4 cfs Wiley No. 1 1.5 cfs Wiley Spring 1 cfs The Republican District has leased a portion of the w ater r ights in 2008, which demonstrated the value of leasing such water to reduce the consumptive use charged to Colorado under the Repub Project Description The Yuma County Water Authority reviewed the pending lawsuit which seeks to redraw the boundaries of the NHP Basin and may result in the curtailment of 1,338 irrigation well s (plus commercial and municipal wells) in Yuma County and studied the following alternatives: Alternative 1 Litigate Dispute: Both parties to the litigation were confident that they would prevail in the June 2008 hearing before the Groundwater Commiss ion. It should be noted that both sides were equally confident prior to the District court appeal that lead to the hearing. At the District Court level both sides won some arguments and lost some arguments. The Yuma County PID expected that the parties w ould experience this same level of success as the litigation continued. Unless the NHP Basin groundwater users were completely successful there was a likelihood of curtailment of 300 to 1,300 wells. Case No. 05 - GW - 14 was set for a month long hearing in Ju ne 2008 in front of a hearing officer for the Groundwater Commission . The Yuma County PID estimated that it may take 4 to 10 years for a final conclusion to the dispute and cost between $3 to $8 million for attorney and engineering fees. It was unlikely th at litigation would eliminate the need to mitigate impacts to the surface water users. : Alternative 2 - Buy out the Water Rights (S ELECTED ) The North Fork surface users initially sought more than $40 million for their water rights, but after a year of negotiations settled for $20 million. The 2003 - 2007 average compact depletion charged to these rights was 2 , 578 AF/yr for the irrigation of 1 , 000 to 1 , 500 acres. This alternative prevents further litigation concerning a dispute lasting more than 30 years and threatening curtailment of the water supply to 190,000 irrigated acres. Coupled with the compact compliance pipeline, this purchase secures the irrigation , municipal , and commercial water suppl ies for the NHP Basin for many years. In addition, the wate r can be relied upon by Yuma County cities as an emergency augmentation supply in the event that compact compliance efforts fail and municipal wells are curtailed per the North Fork Lease . The purchase contract also includes a dry up covenants from the sel lers. There may be additional engineering and legal costs to complete the purchase but these are expected to be small and will be covered by sources other than the CWCB loan .