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Moving Blue Mesa's Marketable Yield: A Myth December 15, 1961.76 These water rights are to serve multiple purposes, including domestic and municipal, irrigation and stock watering, industrial, hydropower devel- opment, flood control, fish and wildlife protection, and recreation. In Union Park II, the Water Court for Division 4, in the context of determining whether the 60,000 AFA subordination was available to Arapahoe County, addressed the place of use of water developed by the Aspinall Unit as follows: It is clear from reading the decrees for the Curecanti [Aspinall] Unit and the Upper Gunnison Basin Project, that the findings contem- plated uses and development of water within the Upper Gunnison Basin, and no mention is made in any of the decrees of any intention to develop water resources for trans-basin diversion." As established in the Union Park litigation, virtually all of the water impound- ed by the Aspinall Unit already is in use. Thus, any diversion of water to the Front Range, without return flows, will of necessity hurt in-basin interests and would be inconsistent with the decrees for the Aspinall Unit. On January 26, 1962, the River District transferred to the United States all the Aspinall Project water rights it had acquired under the above decrees. This put the U.S. in the same position, with the same rights and obligations that were vested in the District by the decrees, which were to meet purposes within the basin. Moreover, the assignment states as follows : This assignment is made by the District and accepted by the United States upon the condition that the water rights assigned will be utilized for the development and operation of the Curecanti [Aspinall] Unit in a manner consistent with the development of water resources for benefi- cial use in the natural basin of the Gunnison River.7B The decrees and assignment create a legal presumption that use of water impounded by the Aspinall Unit is restricted to the Gunnison Basin. C. Marketable Yield and the Union Park Opinions In the Union Park I litigation judge Brown found that the marketable pool was to be put to use inside the Gunnison basin: CRSPA accomplishes its purpose of "storing water for beneficial use" by having developed a marketable yield that is available for sale within the upper basin for irrigation, domestic, municipal or industrial use or for release to the lower basin for beneficial consumptive use within that basin.79 In Union Park II, the judge initially stated: "The Court finds that the BUREC has a marketable yield of 240,000 acre-feet of stored water for sale to water users throughout the state."" Gunnison Basin Water • 19