Closing Brief of the Colorado River Water Conservation District

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District Court, Water Division 4, Colorado Case No. 02CW38; Application of Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District Closing Brief of the Colorado River Water Conservation District Page 3 of 11 furthermore establishes that, even in its current partially-constructed state, the RICD provides a substantial benefit to the regional economy of Gunnison County and the City of Gunnison. Unfortunately, the Colorado Water Conservation Board ("CWCB") has attacked the water right claimed by the Upper Gunnison District, apparently in favor of an entirely speculative transmountain diversion project; a project without a sponsor, without water rights, without a set volume of water, without any federal, state or local permits, and without any demonstrated need. The CWCB's arguments against the RICD push the concept of "compact impairment" to an absurd extreme and tum the doctrine of maximum utilization on its head. The clear meaning and intent of the RICD statute, enacted as Senate Bill 216, would have to be severely distorted in order to accept the CWCB's preference of a theoretical future transmountain diversion project in place of the Upper Gunnison District's current water project, shown by the evidence to be an important component of the local economy. H. THE OPERATION OF SENATE BILL 216. The Colorado Legislature, and the Colorado Supreme Court before it,' have expressly recognized recreational in-channel water uses as beneficial uses entitled to the benefit of an administrative priority, just as any other water right. The primary reason the legislature enacted Senate Bill 216 was to operate as a kind of a"checks and balances" measure on common-law claims for recreational in-channel diversions. As explained in the Applicant's Closing Brief, the Senate Bill 216 balancing factors were intended to protect against potentially mischievous water right filings by 'See Thornton v. Ft. Collins, 830 P.2d 915 (Colo. 1992).