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<br />48 <br /> <br />available to the State Engineer sufficient water to be added into the <br />river to compensate for the flow reduction caused by his well. The <br />determination of how much water must be available is made in an "augmen- <br />tation plan" proposed by the well owner and submitted to the State <br />Engineer for approval. <br />The determination of how much each well reduces the flow rate (cfs) <br />in the river at any place along the river and at any time during the <br />season is a complex scientific problem. It is a problem that was <br />partially solved by Professor Robert E. Glover of Colorado State Univer- <br />sity. He applied wellknown principles of heat flow to groundwater flow <br />and, wi th certa in necessary ideal i zations, he succeeded in devel opi ng a <br />computational niethod which was sufficiently near to reali ty to he <br />acceptable for augmentation plans. <br />However, the application of this analytical computation to each <br />individual well proved to be time-consuming and expensive. The expedi- <br />ency of replacing 5 percent of the annual volume of pumpage was then <br />adopted. For each 100 acre-feet withdrawn from groundwater the <br />well-owner must make available 5 acre-fllet to the State Engineer to he <br />introduced into' the South Platte River at any time it is needed to <br />prevent injury to priority water rights. <br />While the. 5 percent rule facilitated the augmentation plans, still <br />administration by the State Engineer on individual wells was far too <br />expensive to be practical. The solution to this problem was for well <br />owners to form cooperative associations for the purpose of supplying <br />augmentation water. The result is that groundwater pumpers' associa- <br />tions supply surface water into the river from storage at various points <br />