Case Title: TWIN LAKES RESERVOIR, ETC. v. City of Aspen

Citation: 568 P.2d 45

Docket Number: 

State: colorado

Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Date: 1977-08-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
568 P.2d 45 (1977) In the Matter of the Application for Change of Water Rights of the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Company in the Roaring Fork River and its Tributaries, in Pitkin County, Colorado. The TWIN LAKES RESERVOIR AND CANAL COMPANY, Applicant-Appellee, v. The CITY OF ASPEN, the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Pitkin and the Snowmass Water and Sanitation District, Objectors-Appellants. No. 27421. Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc. August 22, 1977. Rehearing Denied September 12, 1977. *46 Holland & Hart, John Undem Carlson, John H. Land, Denver, Lawrence L. Fenton, Ordway, Louis Johnson, Colorado Springs, William F. Mattoon, Pueblo, Leland M. Coulter, Aurora, for applicant-appellee. Vranesh & Musick, John D. Musick, Jr., Joseph A. Cope, Boulder, Sandra M. Stuller, City Atty., Robert P. Grueter, Richard E. Wood, County Atty., Aspen, for objectors-appellants. GROVES, Justice. The water court entered a decree permitting The Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Company (here called the Company) to change the nature of use of water rights from direct flow and storage for irrigation purposes to direct flow and storage for irrigation, domestic, commercial, industrial, municipal and all beneficial purposes. The City of Aspen, the Board of County Commissioners of Pitkin County and the Snowmass Water and Sanitation District took this appeal. We affirm. The record in this case contains 3741 folios. The exhibits fill a fair-sized carton. The water court's findings of fact, conclusions of law and decree consist of 80 folios. Our reading of the record and exhibits, as well as study of the briefs, convinces us that the findings, conclusions and decree are correct, and a substantial part of this opinion is predicated upon them. The water system of the Company has been devoted to the irrigation of 56,000 acres[1] underlying its Colorado Canal in the Ordway-Rocky Ford area, which is located in the southeastern quarter of Colorado. The sources of its water are (1) direct flow from the Arkansas River, (2) storage in Twin Lakes Reservoir and (3) the Independence Pass Transmountain Diversion System (called "IPTDS"). Prior to 1935 its sources were limited to (1) and (2) just set forth. We quote from the water court's findings: This and other factors caused the Company to proceed with IPTDS, a preliminary survey concerning which had been made in 1930. The cost of IPTDS has been over $4,250,000. The Arkansas River flows eastward from the Continental Divide. Twin Lakes Reservoir, at high elevation, is an "in-creek" reservoir on Lake Creek, one of the river's tributaries. The IPTDS is an integrated, complex system of canals, collection works and tunnels on the western side of the Continental Divide. There, water is collected from various streams comprising the headwaters of the Roaring Fork River, which is tributary to the Colorado River.[2] This collected water is diverted through a tunnel beneath the Continental Divide to the headwaters of Lake Creek, and from thence in the creek to Twin Lakes Reservoir. *47 In 1936 the district court entered a decree in the adjudication of the IPTDS water. All priorities there decreed, both absolute and conditional, were given a priority date of August 23, 1930. Conditional priorities were awarded to each of the component parts of the IPTDS gathering system. These priorities were in the aggregate amount of 716 cubic feet per second of time (c.f.s.). Twin Lakes Reservoir & Canal Co. v. City of Aspen, Colo., 557 P.2d 825 (1976). The court further found that the ultimate capacity of the transmountain diversion tunnel would be 625 c.f.s. It awarded the tunnel an absolute priority for 367 c.f.s. and a conditional priority of 258 c.f.s. Portions of the decree read as follows: * * * * * * The "existing sources of supply" of the Company, to which the IPTDS water is "supplementary" as decreed above, are the following: Thus, the company has decrees from eastern slope sources for direct flow of 756.28 c.f.s. and for Twin Lakes Reservoir storage of 54,452 acre feet. Through the years the Company has improved the IPTDS in order to obtain greater amounts of water. These improvements included plastic lining in the collection canals and later spreading bentonite therein to minimize seepage losses. Subsequently, it installed corrugated metal pipe in the most porous portions of the canals. In 1971 and 1972 it lined the transmountain diversion tunnel with concrete. The result of these efforts is that 610 c.f.s. will now pass through the tunnel.[3] Periodically, the district court and later the water court made findings that the Company was proceeding with diligence to enlarge the amounts carried under its conditional decrees, and increased the amount absolutely decreed to the tunnel. In 1973, 610 c.f.s. was decreed absolutely to the tunnel, with the remaining 15 c.f.s. remaining under the conditional decree. *48 Six municipalities and one quasi-municipal corporation have now acquired about 65% of the capital stock of the Company. These are the cities of Colorado Springs, Aurora and Pueblo, the towns of Ordway, Sugar City and Olney Springs, and the Pueblo West Metropolitan District. They seek to utilize the water derived from IPTDS in their municipal systems. The Company, therefore, filed the application for change of use which is here involved. The Colorado River Water Conservation District entered its objection before the water court. This was withdrawn after it entered into a stipulation with the Company whereunder IPTDS diversions are to be limited to 570,000 acre-feet over any period of 10 years with a maximum annual diversion of 68,000 acre-feet. The stipulation contains this provision: As already mentioned, the water court entered a decree permitting the change of use from irrigation to irrigation, domestic, commercial, industrial, municipal and all beneficial uses. In the decree it incorporated the provisions of the stipulation. It found that, as the municipalities begin using the IPTDS water, this will necessitate a change in irrigation practices under which land formerly irrigated for row crops will have to be irrigated merely as pasture lands. The appellants have set forth the summary of their arguments as follows: * * * * * * Following a recitation of the factual and background situation, the water court prefaced its findings and conclusions by quoting certain statutes. These are from Colorado Revised Statutes 1973, as follows: "`Change of water right' means a change in the type, place, or time of use, a change in the point of diversion, a change from a fixed point of diversion to alternate or supplemental points of diversion, a change from alternate or supplemental points of diversion to a fixed point of diversion, a change in the means of diversion, a change in the place of storage, a change from direct application to storage and subsequent application, a change from storage and subsequent application to direct application, a change from a fixed place of storage to alternate places of storage, a change from alternate places of storage to a fixed place of storage, or any combination of such changes. The term `change of water right' includes changes of conditional water rights as well as changes of water rights." (Emphasis added.) XX-XX-XXX(5) "Terms and conditions to prevent injury as specified in subsection (3) of this section may include: The water court then considered the argument that the Company has historically operated its IPTDS in such a manner as to establish a pattern of bypassing water otherwise available for diversion, thus creating an availability of water in the Roaring Fork River on which appellants have come to rely. This argument was supported by testimony that on occasion the Company did not take all of the IPTDS water to which it was entitled. The water court found that the long, continued improvement of the system by the Company negated the contention that the Company had established a pattern of bypassing water otherwise available. The court concluded that the Company had not slept on its rights in a manner that would justify any reduction in entitlement and in change of use. The water court then addressed itself to the question of draft on the stream contemplated at the time of the original appropriation. It cited Farmers Highline Canal & Res. Co. v. Golden, 129 Colo. 575, 272 P.2d 629 (1954), for the proposition, that, "[t]he extent of needed use in the original location is the criterion on considering change of point of diversion." The court then stated: The water court disposed of the "historical average" argument as follows: As to the appellants' claim that they will be injured by the decree, the water court found that the diligence proceedings throughout the years constituted notice to all junior appropriators that the conditional components of the IPTDS were being completed and that the company was proceeding to obtain the contemplated draft of 1936. It added: In the consideration of change of points of diversion and of use, we are accustomed generally to situations in which the water remains in the same watershed. In such cases, two of the primary factors to be considered are any change in the consumptive use of the water and any change in return flow to the stream from irrigation. In contrast, once the IPTDS water flows into the transmountain diversion tunnel, so far as Western Slope users are concerned, there is a 100% consumptive use. Actually, there is a single issue here: Will the appellants and others holding junior priorities be injured because more IPTDS water will go through the tunnel and be lost to Western Colorado under the municipal use than would be the case in the future without the change of use? We approve the court's conclusion in the negative. It should be borne in mind that the municipalities who are going to use this water do not have a right to a steady flow of IPTDS water. Rather, they are subject to the same limitation as the Company has been in the past of the right to use IPTDS water only as supplementary to the Company's decrees from the Arkansas River and Twin Lakes Reservoir. In other words, the Company (which includes its municipal stockholders) can use IPTDS water only to the extent that there is a shortage under the Company's decrees to Eastern Slope water. To us, a very important factor in this proceeding is the stipulated and decreed volumetric limitation operating annually and on a ten-year running average. The water court found that these volumetric limitations constitute a reduction from the contemplated draft of the original appropriation. The evidence sufficiently supports this conclusion with the result that the change of use is not improper. Judgment affirmed. [1] In recent years 50,000 acres have been so irrigated. [2] For a more complete description of the gathering system, see Twin Lakes Reservoir & Canal Co. v. City of Aspen, Colo., 557 P.2d 825 (1976). [3] It is thought that the sustained carriage of water through the tunnel in the future will cause the walls thereof to "slicken" and eventually allow carriage of an instantaneous flow of 625 c.f.s.