Opinion ID: 2613155
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: application of twin lakes ii to the present case

Text: The City of Thornton contends that, under Twin Lakes II, the Alliance's consumptive draft should be limited to 35,000 acre-feet of water since that is the amount that can actually be stored in the original site, the Clear Creek Reservoir. The City of Thornton contends that the water court should have determine[d] the impact to juniors which would result if the conditional water right were operated in the manner contemplated by the original appropriator, in light of the practical constraints faced by that appropriator. The City of Thornton posits that the Alliance has simply tied up Clear Creek storage sites until its members decide to obtain independent water rights at those sites. We disagree. The Twin Lakes II court concluded that there was no expanded use based in part on the fact that the parties had agreed upon an annual operating limit. Twin Lakes II, 193 Colo. at 485, 568 P.2d at 50. In the present case, the City of Thornton, by confessing to the motion in limine, conceded that the Alliance has a conditional right to store 110,000 acre-feet of water at the Clear Creek Reservoir site. [6] Thus, the City of Thornton cannot now argue that the Alliance can only store 35,000 acre-feet of water at the Clear Creek Reservoir site. In Twin Lakes II, we considered the issue of whether junior interest owners would be injured if more water passed through the transmountain diversion tunnel, from western Colorado into eastern Colorado. We concluded that the junior interest owners would not be injured because we found that there was no expanded use over the contemplated draft. Id. at 484, 568 P.2d at 49. In the present case, the water court reached a similar conclusion regarding expansion of use. The water court concluded that, contrary to the City of Thornton's contentions, the evidence in the case demonstrated that storage of water at any of the alternate sites would be limited to the quantity of water physically available in priority at the original Clear Creek Reservoir site. The water court concluded that there would be no injury to the City of Thornton because of the term and condition limiting the conditional right to one of storing only 110,000 acre-feet of water. The water court noted that there was no point of diversion specified with respect to Guy Gulch, but that there were additionally no intervening water rights concerned with any diversion point. Thus the water court did, as the City of Thornton contends it should have, consider the impact to junior interest owners which would result if the conditional water right were operated in the manner contemplated by the original appropriator. We find the City of Thornton's contentions to be unpersuasive and reject them.