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. eJ Judge McCree was a retired federal court judge who was teach- ing at the University of Michigan Law School at that time, He had also been the Solicitor General during the Carter Admin- istration. The Solicitor General is responsible for all litigation by the United States in the u.s. Supreme Court. 8as River Valley. Ground water commissioners went out into the field to find every well that existed and placed a tag on each one. The State Engineer also adopted rules and regulations that required well OWners to install a totalizing flow meter on their wells to determine how much ground water was pumped, or, if the wells were powered by electricity, which niost ofllie wells in the Arkansas River Valley are, they could have it tested to determine a power conversion coefficient to relate the number of kilowatt hours used to pump an acre foot of ground water. Those ru'les were adopted in 1994 and later amended in 1996. After Judge McCree was appointed, we had a conference in Ann Arbor and worked out a proposed order for discovery in the case. But, unfortunately Judge McCree was diagnosed with cance,r and died at the end of the year. The Court then appointed Arthur Littleworth as the Special Master in 1987. Mr. Littleworth was a very well-respected water lawyer from Southem California. He was 63 years old at the time of his appointment and, I suspect) viewed the appoint- ment as the capstone to his career and had no idea that the case wo.uld still be going on 17 years later. A maj or compromise or agreement . that was reached between water users in the Arkansas River Basin was that the rules would not simply address depletions to usable Stateline flows, but would also address the impacts of junior wells on senior surface water rights in Colorado. When Mr. Littleworthtook over the case, he ruled on several pending motions. He then decided to bifurcate the case into a "IiabilityU phase and a "remedyu phase SQ, that he could first detennine if there had been any violations of the Arkansas River Compact) and ifthere were) then detelmine an appropriate remedy. .1 The trial on the liability phase of the case began in September 00990: At thai time, the lawyers in the case estimated that the trial would last between six and twelve weeks. Hal The trial went on for a period of more than two years, with 160 days oftriaI. The primary reason for the long trial was that one of Kansas' experts had to withdraw. Kansas was allowed to des- ignate replacement experts, and the trial on the liability phase was finally completed In 1992. The Special Master issued his first report in 1994, in which he recommended dismissal of the claims involving the Trinidad Project and the Winter Water Storage Program. However, on the claim involving post-Compact well development, he found that regardless of which State's evidence was considered, PQst~ Compact well pumping had depleted usable Stateline flows in violation of the Compact. Bolli states filed exceptions to the Special Master's first report, which were argued to the Court in early 1995. The Court then issued an opinion in May of 1995 which ovenwed the excep- tion.s-and-temanded the case back to the Special Master for proceedings consistent with its opinion. As a result of the find- ing that Colorado was in violation of the Compact) the State Engineer took a number of actions. The Special Master had been critical-of the fact that Colorado had very limited data on "the number of wells that existed in the Arkansas Rivet Bas.in and the amounts of ground water that had been "pumped. " So, the first thing the State Engineer did after the issuance of the first report was to conduct an inventory of wells in the Arkan~ 20 ~.........,,"..... At the same time, Governor Romer appointed a coordinat~ ing committee, which included representatives of well users, surface users, county commis- sioners, and the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, to recommend what should be done in response to the Supreme Courfs decision, and how wells should be brought into compliance with the Arkansas River Compact. The com- mittee met on numerous occasions over the course of more than a year, and agreed on some principles that became the basis of rules and regulations that the State Engineer adopted in 1995 with the intention of bringing post-Compact well pumping into compliance with the Compact. A major compromise or agreement that was reached be- tween water users in the Arkansas River Basin was that the rules would not simply address depletions to usable Stateline flows, but would also address the impacts of junior wells on senior surface water rights in Colorado. The Rules provided that all well pumping in tbeArkansas River Valley would be discontinued unless the wells were included in replacement plans. The replacement plans had to do two things: they had to replace out-of-priority depletions to senior surface rights in Color~do, and) for wells along thy river betvveen Pueblo and the Stateline, they also had to replace depletions to usable Stateline flows. In those rules, the Colorado State Engineer provided that the hydrologic model that had been developed by Kansas to determine depletions to usable Stateline flows would be used to determine deletions to usable Stateline flows. Following the Supreme Court's decision in 1995, Kansas filed ~ motion for an injunction to prohibit pumping by post-Com- pact wells until Colorado had demonstrated that the depletions to usable Stateline flows would be replaced. The Special Master denied the request for injunction and said that the Colorado State Engineer was in the process of adopting rules and regulations. He thought that Colorado should be given a period of time to implement replacement plans to see ifit could come into compliance with the Compact. The Special