Title: Four Counties Wat. US. Ass'n v. Colorado Riv. Wat. Cd
Citation: 414 P.2d 469
Docket Number: 20943
State: Colorado
Issuer: Colorado Supreme Court
Date: April 11, 1966

414 P.2d 469 (1966) FOUR COUNTIES WATER USERS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff in Error, v. COLORADO RIVER WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT and Town of Steamboat Springs, Defendants in Error. No. 20943. Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc. April 11, 1966. Rehearing Denied June 6, 1966. *470 Ireland, Stapleton, Pryor &amp; Holmes, D. Monte Pascoe, Denver, for plaintiff in error. Frank Delaney, Glenwood Springs, for defendant in error Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. DAY, Justice. The parties in this writ of error will be referred to as follows: Plaintiff in errorFour Counties Water Users Associationas Four Counties or claimant; defendants in error Colorado River Water Conservation District and the Town of Steamboat Springs as objectors. *471 Four Counties expressed a desire and intention to put to beneficial use waters in Routt County and in Grand County to be diverted, through a system of exchange, to counties east of the divide. Claimant filed in the district court in each of the counties its Statement of Claims, asserting that appropriations had been made and due diligence demonstrated commencing on and continuously from June 2, 1958. Claimant prayed for the entry by the court of a conditional decree fixing and determining the priority rights of the appropriation of the water claims and establishing the date from which reasonable diligence had been shown to have been exercised and fixing the maximum amount of water which the claimant shall be entitled to divert under the aforementioned priority. The claims in both of the counties were interrelated and constituted an integral collection storage and diversion system. Both counties are within the Fourteenth Judicial District, and it was therefore stipulated by the parties that the testimony introduced at the hearing in the district court of Grand County and the testimony given in the adjudication proceedings in Routt County would be considered together by the court. Identical orders, denominated "Findings and Conclusions," were entered by the court in each of the cases denying claimants their request for a conditional decree. To those orders writ of error issued in this case and in the companion case Colo., 414 P.2d 478. This opinion must be read in conjunction with the opinion in that case announced this date, as both cases were consolidated for oral argument; and it was agreed that the decision in this case is dispositive of questions raised in the other. By its Statement of Claims and the evidence presented at the hearings in support thereof, Four Counties seeks to appropriate water from Walton and Fish Creeks in Water District 58 and on Muddy Creek and its tributary in Water District 50all in the Yampa River Water shed. The plans include storage for these waters in a reservoir on Rabbit Ears Pass. From there, at the first stage of the proceeding, a portion of the water collected would be delivered to Grizzly Creek, a tributary of the North Platte River arising in the northwest corner of North Park. By exchange an equal amount of water would be taken from the Illinois and Michigan Rivers, arising in the northeast corner of North Park and delivered by ditch to Willow Creek Pass. The remainder of the water is contemplated to be transported to Willow Creek Pass by pipe line or channel, and then to Grandy Reservoir by use of the Colorado Big Thompson Conservation facilities on Willow Creek. The waters would then be transported via the Adams Tunnel to the Eastern Slope for water users in the counties of Adams, Boulder, Weld and Larimer. Absent the requisite consent and agreement from the federal government for the use of the Adams Tunnel, the plans call for an extension of the Fourth of July Mine Tunnel on Arapahoe Pass and transportation and storage on the Eastern Slope. Objections were filed in Grand County in the adjudication proceedings there by the Middle Park Water Conservancy District in which the Colorado River Water Conservation District joined. The Town of Steamboat Springs and the Colorado River Water Conservation District joined in filing the protest and objections in the adjudication proceedings in Routt County. The protests filed by all of the objectors are identical, and the court, in denying the conditional decree in both proceedings, adopted in toto all of the points and all of the arguments raised by the objectors to the granting of the decree. In entering its order, the court first announced a general observation which formed the background for and provided the dominant theme in more specific findings. The court said: The court recited the details of the project as shown by various maps, plans and filings in the office of the State Engineer. (They are not necessary for purposes of this opinion to be recited in detail here.) The court then found: Other findingseight in numberwere as follows: To the findings of the court, Four Counties filed detailed and specific objections; and upon the overruling of those objections and the entry of the judgment denying the conditional decree, they prosecuted this writ of error. The findings of the trial court are challenged specifically, but each of them need not be analyzed in this opinion. In summary, it is asserted that they are either not supported by the evidence or are contrary to undisputed evidence. It is also argued that the court refused to apply the law announced by this court in Metropolitan Suburban Water Users Association, et al. v. Colorado River Water Conservation District, et al., 148 Colo. 173, 365 P.2d 273, to the facts in this case. Here, as in that case, is involved the application of C.R.S. 1963, 148-10-6 to facts clearly similar. The section reads: First Question To Be Determined: DID FOUR COUNTIES PRESENT SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO BRING IT WITHIN THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE "CONDITIONAL DECREE" STATUTE ABOVE QUOTED? This question is answered in the affirmative. The trial court characterizes this statute as "replete with ambiguities and uncertainties" and further observed that "until these have been resolved by authoritative judicial interpretation the supported control of the court over the conditional decree (itself an accomplished fact) [sic] is very tenuous." The statute for application for a conditional decree is not ambiguous. And when read with C.R.S. 1963, 148-10-8, as we said in Metropolitan Suburban Water Users Association, supra, the latter section provides "* * * ample safeguards" for the future. It reads in pertinent part as follows: Applying section 148-10-6, it is clear that in proceedings pertaining to an award of a conditional decree for water, only two questions are properly before the *475 court, and their determination will dictate whether a conditional decree must follow. One is whether an appropriation has been made by the claimant and as of what date. The second is whether the claimant has prosecuted his claim of appropriation and the planning, financing and construction of his enterprise with reasonable diligence. In the case at bar claimant is in the anomalous position of having the court find that there was due diligence from the date of January 26, 1959 (although the correctness of that date is challenged) but that there was no appropriation. Left unanswered by the court was what Four Counties had been duly diligent about. Second Question To Be Determined: This question is answered in the affirmative. An appropriation of water for beneficial use thereof is effected as of the time the "first step" is taken to secure it. Sieber v. Frink, 7 Colo. 148, 2 P. 901. We have held that what constitutes the "first step" is not the same in every proposed diversion because the facts must be taken into consideration in each case on an ad hoc basis; although projects of the scope of Four Counties have been before this court in previous years. For example, in Taussig v. Moffat Tunnel, etc., Co., 106 Colo. 384, 106 P.2d 363, we affirmed the granting of conditional decrees on the basis that appropriations were effected by the conducting of surveys in pursuance of a plan to bring water from the Western Slope to the South Platte Basin on the East Slope. In that case we said: Thus it is clear that Four Counties was entitled to an appropriation date as of the time of its field survey. The trial court characterized these as merely reconnaissance surveys and being preliminary in nature. However, we find from the record that they were, in fact, the basis for filing of maps and statements with the State Engineer: the first within three months timein Septemberand the others the following January, a total of six months for surveys and detailed maps. A survey of such depth as to be the basis for detailed maps is one that we have said can be used as the date of the initiation of the appropriation. As we said in Metropolitan Suburban Water Users Association, supra: This evidence of survey work commenced in June, 1958, followed by preparation and filing of maps and statements as early as September, 1958, also constitutes due diligence since the initial survey. It was error for the court to ignore this earlier six-month period in its finding that due diligence *476 had been shown only since January 26, 1959. Third Question To Be Determined: DOES THE EVIDENCE SUPPORT THE COURT FINDING THAT THERE WAS NO NEED FOR THE WATER; THAT THE SHOWING OF NEED WAS AT MOST SPECULATIVE, AND THAT THE PROJECT WAS "NOT FEASIBLE, WAS FANTASTIC AND WITHOUT REASONABLE PROMISE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT."? This question is answered in the negative. The finding of the trial court in this regard was, at most, only an opinion and not a finding of fact. The answers to most of the questions in the mind of the trial court lie in the future. The court applied yardsticks outside those set forth in the Metropolitan case; and, if the trial court's reasoning was to apply, there would be required certainty about the future when no forthright man could make such a judgment. The court, in effect, required proof of future needs for water with certainty at the time of the application for the conditional decree; and further required that no changes be made in the project once commenced; and that detailed planning for every phase of the multi-million dollar project be completed. The court, in effect, required proof with certainty that the project would be constructed, and that the construction would be financially feasible As we said in Metropolitan, supra: We further commented on similar findings of the trial court in the Metropolitan case as follows: The evidence at the hearing was about as certain as it was possible to present. It was shown that $245,602.40 had been expended up to the date of the hearing; most of the rights of way had been obtained; 2.25 miles of the ditch for which claim was made had been constructed, including measuring *477 of flumes and diversion dams; construction of 3.9 miles of ditch in the southeast corner of North Park was completed, concrete indications of a present and completed intention to take. Surveys were made to determine the future water needs of persons living in the Four Counties area, showing that on projected population growth 395,000 persons would be living within the proposed Four Counties to be served by the year 1970 and 740,000 by 1985. It was estimated that 1,145,000 people would be in the area by the year 2000. This would create demands for additional water of from 35,000 to 45,000 acre feet by the year 1970; from 85,000 to 146,000 acre feet by the year 1985; and between 156,000 and 268,000 acre feet by the year 2000. In view of the fact that waters from the natural streams in the area are virtually 100% appropriated, the only source of water available would be from a transmountain diversion project such as here presented. Aware of the problems presented in projects of such magnitude and that their solution is not always resolved in detail, either from the outset or at the time of the hearing for a conditional decree, we further said in the Metropolitan case: Fourth Question To Be Determined: DID THE COURT ERR IN FINDING AND CONCLUDING THAT THERE WERE CHANGES IN THE PLAN OF SUCH NATURE AS TO INDICATE NO FIXED INTENTION TO TAKE OF IF THERE WAS SUCH AN INTENTION IT HAD BEEN ABANDONED? This question is answered in the affirmative. There is nothing in the evidence that would support a finding of abandonment. Of the changes referred to, all but one involved amendments to the storage and transmission system first envisioned by Four Counties. A change of diversion is not involved. Evidence such as shown herein could not form the basis for abandonment of claimant's intention to take water from a particular source. If a contemplated or actual diversion of water is not altered at its source, the doctrine of relation back should apply. Apparently relying on some of the language in City and County of Denver v. Northern Colorado Conservancy District, 130 Colo. 375, 276 P.2d 992, the court also concluded that the abandonment of headgates on ditch No. 1 and an increase in the take from headgates on ditch No. 3 constituted such a major change in plans that the initiation of the appropriation could not relate back to the first step taken, i.e., the survey. The court thus advanced this as another reason for adopting the January 26, 1959 date as the first date from which "due diligence had been shown." The alterations in the plans on subsequent maps filed did not change the source from which the water was to be taken nor the amount claimed. It was effected in such a short period of time as to be not a change at all. In fact, the evidence was that the only revision in the maps and statements originally filed with the State Engineer was made because further engineering studies showed that it was more efficient to transport the waters for which claim was made by gravity to a single reservoir than to transport the waters to North Park at two places. The revision claimed no new water and changed no point of diversion. It does, however, result in several points of diversion not being used. The differences actually result in a more efficient, economical plan; and rather than showing no fixed intention to take, they demonstrate continuous engineering studies with a purposeful, deliberate and diligent effort to take all steps necessary to divert the water *478 and apply it to beneficial use. On the evidence here presented, what was said by Mr. Justice Moore in his dissenting opinion in City and County of Denver v. Northern Colorado District, supra, applies to these facts and not the language in the majority opinion. The dissent discussed the following ruling: Fifth Question To Be Determined: IS THE ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY OF COMPLETING THE PROJECT A TEST TO BE APPLIED UPON APPLICATION FOR A CONDITIONAL DECREE? This question is answered in the negative. As has been indicated earlier, the purpose of the conditional decree statute is to determine if an appropriation has been initiated. The requirement that the parties appear before the court under C.R.S.1963, 148-10-8, to report on the diligence pursued and the additional steps taken is designed to enable the court to check on whether evidence of insufficient finances or the economic non-feasibility of the project appear in more concrete form. One cannot reasonably expect a water diversion plan of this size to be without problems and difficulties. Claimant is under an obligation to exert reasonable diligence to overcome these obstacles or lose his claim. At each of the statutory reviews of the prosecution of the claim, there will have to be presented progress reports of financial plans and sufficient work to prove that the project can and will be completed. As we said again in the Metropolitan case, "If they have miscalculated and fail, the loss is theirsif they succeed, it will be for the eternal benefit of the peoples of the state of Colorado." The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with directions to enter a conditional decree in accordance with the claim filed and prayed for.