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District Court, Water Division 4, Colorado <br />Case No. 02CW38; Application of Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District <br />Closing Brief of the Colorado River Water Conservation District <br />Page 8 of 11 <br />whether the RICD would impair compact development. The end-result of Mr. Seaholm's opinion <br />is that any impact on the ability to develop future water rights would result in compact impaurnent. <br />Taken to its logical conclusion, Mr. Seaholm's opinion is that any RICD, regardless of its location <br />and regardless of the flow rate, would impair compact development because, similar to any other <br />water right, a RICD is entitled to "call-out" junior users. The application of such a standard would <br />render the RICD statute meaningless and the CWCB notably disclaimed Mr. Seaholm's opinion at <br />trial. Having repudiated the opinion of its own expert, the CWCB then failed to present any evidence <br />or argument as to what the applicable standard should be for determining compact impaument. <br />A possible implication of the CWCB's position is that "compact impaument" should mean <br />whatever the CWCB decides it means. In this case, the CWCB asserted that "compact impairmenY" <br />could arise due to the potential of the RICD to impact, in an unknown manner and degree, an entirely <br />speculative and substantially unknown future transmountain diversionproject. The consideration of <br />such speculative impact is antithetical to Colorado water law. See Colorado River Water <br />Conservation District v. Colorado Water Conservation Board, 594 P.2d 570, 575 (Colo. 1979) <br />("until such time as a person is in fact deprived of the beneficial use of available water because of [the <br />CWCB's instream flow] appropriations the alleged harm is purely speculative and must be rej ected."). <br />See also Board of County Comm'rs ofArapahoe County v. United States, 891 P.2d 952, 962 (Colo. <br />1995) (conditional water rights and unused absolute rights should not be considered when <br />determining water availability of new conditional water rights because to do would be speculative). <br />The Colorado Legislature certainly did not intend the absurd result of defeating present valid