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From our earliest history, the General Assembly in Colorado has encouraged <br />adjudication of water rights in order to preclude future controversies and to <br />afford security to those who labored to build a society here. Colorado's first <br />irrigation statutes reflect this purpose .... In all of the aforementioned acts, <br />there is a consistent objective: through adjudication procedures, competitors <br />for water fix their relative priorities and the public water officials thereafter <br />allocate water in order of priority. Moreover, the underlying purpose of the <br />federal joinder in Colorado adjudication proceedings is to afford a forum for <br />the reconciliation of competing theories and claims to result in a predictable <br />and reliable system of water allocation. <br />United States v. Denver, 656 P.2d at 4 n. 1 (citations omitted); see also id. at 6 ( "An essential <br />purpose of the systematic distribution of water under Colorado law is to secure an orderly and stable <br />society "); id. at 36 ( "The resolution and integration of state and federal water claims is of utmost <br />importance to the western states "). Under the policy set out in both the McCarran Amendment and <br />Colorado water adjudication statutes, this Court should not acquiesce in Environmental Opposers' <br />attempt to transfer quantification of this right to the federal district court. <br />D. The History of this Case Mandates that this Court Continue to Adjudicate the Black <br />Can own Right. <br />Environmental Opposers' efforts to involve the federal district court in quantification of the <br />Black Canyon right is particularly inappropriate. because the inchoate right that they seek to <br />"enforce" was initially determined in water court and has been the subject of over thirty years of <br />proceedings in Colorado courts. As Colorado Water Users and Officials noted in their Reply in <br />support of the Motion to Amend, there are numerous legal and factual issues concerning the <br />quantification of the Black Canyon right that depend upon careful review of the prior proceedings. <br />If Environmental Opposers are successful in obtaining a stay here and seeking de facto <br />D <br />