Response of CO Water Users and Officials to Motion to Stay Proceedings

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participation in other state court water proceedings all counseled deference to the state proceeding. Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 820. Similarly, in considering a motion to stay, judicial discretion requires the trial court to consider comity and recognize that "concurrent litigation in state and federal court.in itself does not disrupt the policies of avoidance of piecemeal litigation, wise judicial administration, conservation of judicial resources, or comprehensive disposition of litigation." Adolph Coors Co., 89 F.R.D. at 154. Under either standard, Environmental Opposers have not met their burden. The United States' reserved right for the Black Canyon has already been the subject of extensive state court proceedings, while Environmental Opposers have only just filed their federal complaint. This case, like the Colorado River case, implicates extensive state water rights, as is evidenced by the 384 statements of opposition. Fourth, the distance between this Court and the United States District Court for the District of Colorado is approximately 200 miles. Traveling this distance is too great a hardship on many of the parties interested in the resolution of this dispute. Finally, not only has the federal government participated in other state court adjudications, it actually filed this proceeding in state court. Environmental Opposers also attempt to justify a stay for reasons of judicial economy, professing a concern for the possibility of "unnecessary and misspent" effort by the court and parties, if the United States is allowed to pursue a stipulated decree based on the amended application. This concern is ill founded. First, generally settlement negotiations consume very little of the court's time. And in any case, considerations of judicial economy should rarely if ever lead to broad curtailment of access to the courts. Chilcott, 713 F.2d at 1485. As for the objectors' 16