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o Appendix A nearly six-week trial on whether there was sufficient water available to Arapahoe for the Union Park Project began in early June 1991. Models were used by both Arapahoe and Arapahoe's opponents to estimate physical water availability at Arapahoe's points of diversion. Existing water rights and other "law of the river" were applied to physical water availability totals to estimate legal water availability. Arapahoe's experts estimated that there were 295,000 AFA physically available at Arapahoe's points of diversion. Opponents' experts estimated that there was 278,000 AFA physically available. Judge Brown determined that the opposers' experts estimate was more reliable. However, for purposes of determining how much water was available to the project, this difference was not significant. What mattered more were the differences in assumptions between opposers' and Arapahoe's experts regarding the legal availability of water, the amount of water available after taking into account water rights senior to those Arapahoe was seeking. On this score, the applicant estimated that there were between 97,000 AFA and 139,000 AFA legally available to Arapahoe at its points of diversion. Opposers' experts estimated that there were between 6,310 AFA and 48,950 AFA legally avail- able. Judge Brown found that the opposers' evidence better reflected the law of water availability in the Basin. On the basis of this evidence, Judge Brown found that the water legally available to the project would not exceed 20,000 AFA. Arapahoe con- ceded that it would not go forward with the project with the amount of water, at which point Judge Brown dismissed Arapahoe's application for water rights. Judge Brown's opinion in Union Park I contains a number of findings of fact and conclusions of law that remain the "law of the Upper Gunnison," notwithstand- ing Arapahoe's subsequent appeal of this opinion, reversal of portions of the opinion by the Colorado Supreme Court, another trial on water availability (Union Park II), and a final Supreme Court opinion. Below is a summary of the key holdings in Union Park I, including those from pre-trial rulings, which remain the law of the river to this day. .. 48. 1. An applicant for conditional water rights must prove, as a threshold element of its burden of proof under the Can and Will statute, that there is sufficient water available for its project on the date for which it seeks a priority. The Bureau is entitled to use the full decreed rights it holds under state law for the Aspinall Unit, including for fish and wildlife, recreation, and hydropower. The Bureau puts all of the water that it is entitled to use under its state decrees to beneficial uses. The Bureau does not release water from the Aspinall Unit for any single purpose, but for the multiple purposes authorized in CRSPA and by its water rights. 1b do so is a lawful use of the Bureau's state decrees. The UVWUXs water rights for the Gunnison Tunnel do not have to be satisfied by releases from Aspinall Unit storage. This means that the 2. 3. 4. 5. The land and Water Fund of the Rockies