07SA293 Advance Sheet Headnote The Water Right Determination and Administration Act of 1969 The Colorado Ground Water management Act beneficial use well appropriation

Home Browse Search

Conservation Commission ( "COGCC "). Ex circumstances, the Engineers have not, for the CBM wells because they believe obligation to do so. The Ranchers possess water rights 7 that lie in sources tributary to the Sept under limited thus far, issued permits they are under no located in Water Division Piedra River and the Pine River. The Ranchers use their water rights for irrigation, stock watering, domestic uses, farming, and piscatorial uses. In their declaratory judgment action before the water court, the Ranchers argued that the water used in CBM production constitutes out of priority depletions that are injurious to their vested senior water rights.' They contended that the use of water in the CBM process is a "beneficial use" and that the Engineers are statutorily obligated to require well permits for CBM wells pursuant to the Ground Water Act. The Engineers asserted that the CBM wells are not "wells," as defined by the Ground Water Act, because they do not put water to a "beneficial use." Instead, they claimed that the extracted water is merely ' The Ranchers relied on a study by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management entitled, "A Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Northern San Juan Basin Coal Bed Methane Project Volume I," that concluded, "[b]efore CBM development in the northern San Juan Basin, discharge from the Fruitland aquifer to the Animas, Florida, Pine and Piedra Rivers totaled approximately 195 acre -feet per year, [and] [m]odeling by Cox et al. (2001) has demonstrated that CBM development has and will continue to intercept groundwater that would normally discharge to these rivers." (emphasis added). 7