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also NCWCD members, prominently, Boulder and Sterling. Other signators on the objection to the emergency plan included attorneys for Henrylyn Irrigation District, Harmony Ditch Company, Centennial Water and Sanitation, South Adams County, and Ducommum Business Trust. Even some architects of the emergency plan, including Aurora and Greeley, joined the initial objectors after it became apparent that the wells would remain shut down. Boulder's official Web site states that the city considers itself harmed, and its water rights illegally infringed upon by the wells. Its Web site states that "Boulder has already had to release water to the South Platte on at least six days in April, resulting in a reduction to Boulder water supply." The requirement for junior well users to be able to meet a call on the river for 365 consecutive days, three years in a row, is not something new. The well owners agreed to the condition some three years ago, in response to demands from surface right holders. Simpson says this agreement, the crux of objections, is a "pretty high standard," and having a three - year -long call is a scenario that has only occurred twice since 1950. The first in the early 1950s, before the Colorado -Big Thompson Project was fully online, and the second between 2002 -04, during years of intense drought. "To acquire water for year -round use means farmers have to compete with cities," Simpson says, something that indepen- dent farmers are generally unable to do economically. But that shouldn't change the playing field, say objectors. "The amount of water within their proposed plan wasn't enough," says Ellinghouse. The well users "need to have suffi- cient water to meet the call. They didn't have leases or water in storage. They just needed to show they could get it. The plans couldn't show how they could for more than one year." A PERFECT STORM This summer's conflict has been building for years, but it has hardly been unforeseen. In the early 1990s, a University of Arizona professor predicted the current situation. The situation with well users on the South Platte this year actually began with the state 1969 Water Rights and Administration Act, says Central's Cech. Its purpose was to integrate the management of surface and groundwater rights. Under the act, tributary wells —those hydrologically connected to surface streams —must be managed according to the prior appropriation system. If wells take water away from or injure another water user, they must be curtailed or shut down, which is what gives the objectors, whether they have senior or junior rights, the basis to file their claims. The 1969 law gave the state engineer authority to allow wells to bypass the priority system as long as well users rented or leased surface water to offset pumping. The intent was to ensure surface rights holders with higher priorities weren't harmed. Substitute supply plans for renting, stor- ing or buying replacement water could be approved by the state engineer for defined periods. In contrast, augmenta- The South Platte river, pictured near Fort Morgan, experienced below average flows this spring.