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The expected yield of the Compact Compliance Pipeline is 15,000 a - eet per year, which should be adequate to ensure compact compliance forth 0-year iod of repayment of the CWCB loan. The North Fork Lease will reduce a consumptive use charged by Colorado by approximately 2,500 acre-feet per year, which will reduce the need to pump ground water from the Compact Compliance Pipeline, thereby extending the life of the Compact Compliance Wells. 2.2. Water Rights The water rights included in the Transaction are listed on the schedule attached to this study as Attachment 5 which water rights, along with certain rights-of-way and infrastructure are referred to in this study as the "Water Rights". The Transaction is subject to YCWA PID's review of the surface owner's title to the Water Rights and rights to convey the same and the grant by the surface owners of certain covenants to dry-up the property on which the Water Rights were historically used. The RRWCD WAE has leased a portion of the Water Rights in 2008, which demonstrated the feasibility of leasing such water rights to reduce the consumptive use charged to Colorado under the Republican River Compact Administration's accounting procedures. 3.0 PROJECT DESCRIPTION 3.1. Purpose and Background of the North Fork Water Rights Purchase The YCWA negotiated the terms of the proposed Transaction in June of 2008 in an effort to settle the litigation that threatened to curtail over 1,300 irrigation wells in Yuma County. All other agricultural communities in Colorado have faced surface water- groundwaterdisputes, but in those cases the wells subject of curtailment were junior wells administered in the priority system. The NHP Basin wells on the other hand were designated basin wells operating pursuant to the terms of their state issued well permits, which were supposed to be operating outside of the priority system and therefore not subject to curtailment. 1. Well Regulation History In 1965, the Colorado Ground Water Management Act was enacted, which created the Colorado Ground Water Commission and allowed the Commission to establish designated ground water basins. The Management Act applied a modified doctrine of prior appropriation to designated ground water to permit the full economic development of such ground water. On May 13, 1966, the Ogallala Aquifer in the Republican River Basin in Colorado was included in the Northern High Plains Designated Ground Water Basin. At that time, there was limited well development in the NHP Basin. However, improvements in center pivot sprinkler irrigation systems allowed the development of land that was more difficult to irrigate with flood irrigation methods, and approximately 4,000 final permits have been issued within the 12368\1 \1204400.5 3