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WATER NEWS Page 3 Aspinall Subordination Agreement Finalized After nearly 40 years of effort, an agreement was reached between the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the State of Colorado, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regarding the administration of water rights for the Bureau's Aspinall Unit. The agreement formalizes the subordination of 60,000 acre - feet of the federal govern- ment's water rights to the Upper Gunnison River Basin. Junior water users may de- velop up to 60,000 acre -feet of water for use within the Upper Gunnison River Basin without being called out by the Aspinall Unit's water rights The United States holds stor- age rights on the Gunnison River for approximately 1.1 million acre -feet, and direct flow rights in excess of 3000 cubic feet per second. The agreement means that water rights junior to the United State's 1957 priority date will not have to be shut down to satisfy the Aspinall Unit. (A call is how Colorado's priority sys- tem for water is enforced. A senior water right that is not receiving enough water makes a call on the river through the division engineer or water com- missioner, who must shut down enough junior water rights until the senior gets its decreed amount of water.) When the agreement was signed on June 1 of 2000, a longstanding commitment by the United States was put in writing. Since construction of the reservoirs in the 1960's, the Aspinall Unit has been op- erated in a manner that has protected the upper basin and allowed for in -basin water de- velopment. However, in the 1980's, a filing in water court for a project that would involve the diversion of Gunnison basin water to the Front Range spurred efforts to formalize the United States' verbal assur- ances. Proponents of the Union Park Project argued that the subordination was available for out -of -basin use as well. The final agreement assures that only in -basin users are able to benefit from the subordination. The following people and enti- ties worked hard to complete the agreement: Dick Bratton and John McClow, attorneys for the UGRWCD, the Colorado River Water Conservation Dis- trict, the Colorado Attorney General's office, the Colorado Division of Water Resources, and the U.S. Bureau of Recla- mation. The Upper Gunnison District would like to express its appreciation to those who assisted in getting this historic agreement finalized. Future Board Meetings Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District Board of Directors Meetings are held at 6 :30 pm in the Gunnison County Multipurpose Building, 275 South Spruce Street, Gunnison March 26, 2001 April 23, 2001' May 21 2001 June 25 2001 (Annual Meeting)` References Available for public information are two recently prepared professional papers regarding the District: "Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD) History" by L. Richard Bratton, August, 2000. "Transbasin Diversions—A View from the Basin of Origin" by Kathleen Curry and John McClow, January, 2001.