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1062 PLAN FOR AUGMENTATION The happy situation which has existed in the past is now threatened by recent legislation (Senate Bill No. 81) which among other things requires that irrigation wells be brought under the priority system and provides means for accomplishing this. Therefore, if the Oxford Farmers Ditch Company is to preserve its historic water supply it is essential that the Company and the shareholders therein comply with the legislation and obtain legal rights for the USe of ground water to supplement and augment the inadequate supply avail- able from decrees for surface water. Section 148-21-18(5) of Senate Bill No. 81 makes specific prov1s10n for organizations such as the Oxford Farmers Ditch Company to comply with the new legislation by authorizing them to "initiate and implement plans for aug- mentation for the benefit of all water users within their boundaries." Section 148-21-3(12) defines "Plan for augmentation" as "a detailed program to increase the supply of water available for beneficial use in a division or portion thereof by the development of new or alternative means or points of diversion, by a pooling of water resources, by water exchange projects, by providing substitute supplies of water, by the development of new sources of water or by any other appropriate means." Section 148-21-21(3) provides that the referee and water judge shall approve plans for augmentation if they 'will not injuriously affect the OWner or persons entitled to use water under a vested water right or a decreed conditional water right." In considering possible plans for augmentation it should be remembered that within a few years it will be possible for the Oxford Farmers Ditch Company to purchase additional water when needed from the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. When Pueblo Reservoir is completed it will also be possible for the Company to contract for storage of a portion of the water now used for winter irrigation and release of this water during the irrigation season to provide a better regulated supply. However, neither of these courses of action is now possible. Accordingly, any plan of augmentation proposed at present, must be of temporary nature and can only involve legalization of the use of ground water and better integrated use of both ground and surface water. It is assumed that in approving any plan of augmentation the water judge will limit the water supply to the amount that can normally be put to beneficial use. This is in line with the intent of Senate Bill No. 81 to maximize the beneficial use of the total water resources of the state. For the irrigators in the Oxford Farmers Ditch Company any plan for augmentation must be simple if it is to be effective. None of the shareholder wells are equipped with metering devices or hour meters, so any plan involving selective pumping of individual wells on a quota system is presently impractical. Also, the location of the wells within sections of the canals and within certain depletion zones is such that selective pumping by groups of wells would be extremely difficult to schedule on an equitable basis. Thus, for the present the most practical approach appears to be a plan that will permit all individual well owners to pump whenever necessary but under restrictions imposed by the Company in accordance with the provisions of the plan of augmentation. Until such time as additional transmountain water becomes available -, 22 -