PUB00105

• Year: 1999
• Title: Conference Proceedings: 24th Annual Gunnison Water Workshop
• CWCB Section: Administration
• Description: Theme of the workshop was Garden of Dreams v. High-Desert Reality
• Publications - Doc Type: Other

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

quantity, and at a time and location, to prevent injury to downstream senior water
rights. The most common type of augmentation plan is to purchase "replacement
water" from a reservoir located upstream of senior users.

D. Legal Standards:

I. The water court will approve a change of water right or augmentation plan,
including a water exchange project, ifit will not injure any other water right.
C.R.S. 9 37-92-305(3).

2. A decree may include terms and conditions to prevent injury. C.R.S. 9 37-
92-305(4).

3. A water right may only be changed to the extent of its historical use.
Enlargement or expansion of use to the detriment of junior water rights is
prohibited. Matter of Steffens, 756 P.2d 1002 (Colo. 1988).

4. For augmentation plans and exchanges, the substituted water must be of "a
quantity and quality so as to meet the requirements for which the water of the
senior appropriator has normally been used, and such substituted water shall
be accepted by the senior appropriator in substitution for water derived by the
exercise of his decreed rights." C.R.S. 9 37-92-305(5).

5. For all exchanges, "any substituted water shall be of a quality and continuity
to meet the requirements of use to which the senior appropriation has
normally been put." C.R.S. 9 37-80-120(3).

6. The "no injury" standard protects the rights of junior appropriators to the
continuation of stream conditions at the time of their appropriation. City of
Thornton v. Biiou lIT. Co., 926 P.2d I (Colo. 1996).

x.

Forms of Ownership and Methods of Delivery

A. Individual or collective private ownership of water rights and a diversion structure
(ditch, reservoir, well, pipeline, etc.).

7