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and subject to appropriation as part of the waters of the stream. The burden of proof is on one asserting that such ground water is not so tributary, to prove that fact by clear and satisfactory evidence. Safranek v. Town of Limon, 228 P.2d 975, 977 (Colo. 1951). Under the General Assembly's definition of the "hundred year rule," section 37 -90 -103, C.R.S. (2004), the bench line for finding ground water to be nontributary is that its with- drawal will not deplete the flow of a natural stream at an annual rate greater than one -tenth of one percent of the annual rate of withdrawal. In 1968, the Supreme Court in Fellhauer said that an injured water user need not show which particular well withdrawal injured the exercise of his or her water right. In an over - appropriated stream system —the South Platte and the Arkansas Basins suffer material injury to their water use rights, contrary to Colorado water law. Simpson v. Bijou Irrigation Co., 69 P.3d 50, 60 (Colo. 2003). Under section 37 -92- 308(2), the General Assembly has provided the State Engineer with authority to approve annual substitute supply plans on a limited basis while augmentation plans are proceeding to and in the water court. A fundamen- tal function of a substitute supply plan, like an augmentation plan, is to replace the amount of the injurious depletion to the stream to meet senior water right needs. not necessary. Fellhauer v. People, 447 P.2d 986, 991 (Colo. 1968). In the 1969 Water Right Adjudication and Administration Act, the Colorado General Assembly authorized the wa- ter courts to review and approve augmentation plans that adequately protect senior water rights from the effects of junior well pumping. Under an augmentation plan, the well is allowed to operate out of priority by replacing the amount of its injurious depletions to the stream. If depletions by juniors will deprive seniors of a quantity of water that would have available to them were it not for the juniors' water use, the depletions must be replaced through some source of legally - obtained water. If the depletions are not replaced, seniors All of these legisla- tive acts and Colorado Supreme Court decisions implement the prior appropriation system applicable to all natural streams in this state under the provisions of the Colo- rado Constitution adopted in 1876. All water in Colorado is a public resource whose ownership remains in the public. So, what is a water right? It is a right to use waters of the natural stream —which includes ewer South Platte Forum. surtace water ana mnutary groundwater —when water would be naturally avail- able to it in order of priority for diversion at its decreed loca- tion under its decreed priority in the amount of its decreed beneficial use. Since 1879, just three years after statehood, the General Assembly assigned Colorado Courts the authority to decree water right priorities that the water officials administer when there is not enough natural supply to satisfy all decreed diver- sions and senior water users "call" for their rights. Essen- tially, the "call" is for curtailment of junior rights that would interfere with the ability of senior rights to enjoy their share of the natural available supply. So the most basic of all truths about Colorado water law is that nature dictates water availability. No farmer can make it rain or snow. So we might as well recognize that gover- nors, legislators, and supreme court justices can't open up the heavens either. In 1982 the Colorado Supreme Court said what the court had been saying about Colorado's and climate since the first 1872 decision of the Territorial Supreme Court, no one can "warrant that it will snow or rain" or that senior appropria- �.." 17