Opinion ID: 2515357
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Historical Operation

Text: NSID claims that its nearly one hundred years of low-point operation preclude the Engineers from implementing a November 1 water year. NSID argues that the Engineers acquiesced to low-point administration by allowing NSID to operate on that basis historically. Without an adjudication of rights associated with its historical operations, NSID's claim fails. Water officials are not bound to administer water rights according to custom. As we stated in Comstock: [U]sers and consumers of water ... in one district cannot make and apply regulations in the administration of their priorities according to their own interpretation of them, and to meet their needs as they think they should be met; but the waters of a division must be distributed to all consumers under the uniform rule provided by law. 58 Colo. at 202, 145 P. at 705. See also Orchard City Irr. Dist., 146 Colo. at 138, 361 P.2d at 135 (stating water officials' duty is to distribute the waters of a stream according to the decreed priorities therein). In order to viably claim that the November 1 year unlawfully conflicts with its historical operations, NSID would have to demonstrate that those operations gave rise to rights beyond those decreed. Because the one-fill rule is an implied limitation on all storage decrees, NSID's historical operations could not give rise to a right to divert in excess of one annual fill. See Orchard City Irr. Dist., 146 Colo. at 142, 361 P.2d at 137; Windsor, 44 Colo. at 223, 98 P. at 733. But even if NSID could make that showing, it would need to have its rights adjudicated in order to enforce them. As we held in Empire Lodge, Administrative action, forbearance of enforcement, or State Engineer acquiescence in water use practices does not substitute for judicial determination of use rights. 39 P.3d at 1156-57. Those making water uses must obtain a decree adjudicating their rights if they desire to have standing to enforce them. Santa Fe Trail Ranches Prop. Owners Ass'n v. Simpson, 990 P.2d 46, 58 (Colo.1999). We thus are not persuaded by NSID's claim that its historical operations preclude the Engineers from implementing a November 1 water year.