Opinion ID: 2624506
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Heading: Adverse Possession and Abandonment Water Law

Text: In Colorado, a party seeking to establish ownership of another person's water right by adverse possession has the burden of establishing that such possession is actual, adverse, hostile, and under claim of right, as well as open, notorious, exclusive, and continuous for the prescribed statutory period. Bagwell v. V-Heart Ranch, Inc., 690 P.2d 1271, 1273 (Colo.1984). Such a claim can be made only as between rival claimants to the possession and use of water, for the statutory period, behind the headgate, that is, after the water's diversion from the stream pursuant to an adjudicated water right. Mountain Meadow Ditch and Irrigation Co. v. Park Ditch and Reservoir Co., 130 Colo. 537, 539, 277 P.2d 527, 528 (1954). Section 38-41-101(2), C.R.S. (2008), of Colorado's adverse possession statutes provides that no adverse possession claim may be made against any ... water, water right... whatsoever dedicated to or owned by the state of Colorado. Accordingly, Colorado law does not recognize a claim of adverse possession against the stream or against appropriators on the stream. Ward H. Fischer, Adverse Possession of River Flows, 23 The Colorado Lawyer, June 1994, at 1313, 1315. A party may not adversely possess water from a stream because a water right does not represent actual ownership of any part of the public's water in the stream, but only the right to claim and divert at the headgate of the diversion works the amount of water actually needed for beneficial use, up to the volume of the adjudicated priority. Mountain Meadow Ditch and Irrigation Co., 130 Colo. at 539, 277 P.2d at 528 (The unappropriated water of every stream is the property of the public against which title by adverse user may not be acquired.); see also Granby Ditch & Reservoir Co. v. Hallenbeck, 127 Colo. 236, 241-42, 255 P.2d 965, 968 (1953) (stating that adjudicated water rights may be lost by abandonment, but, in such a case, the priority abandoned does not continue and go to another by virtue of his use of the water; rather, the right itself ceases to exist and the water theretofore properly claimed under it goes to fill subsequent appropriations in their order of decreed priority). Beneficial use is the most fundamental aspect of Colorado's prior appropriation water law. Section 6, Article XVI, of the Colorado Constitution provides, The right to divert the unappropriated waters of any natural stream to beneficial uses shall never be denied. Accordingly, a water use right adjudicated for the purpose of recognizing its priority is a valuable property right that a public or private person or entity can obtain by making an actual beneficial use of a portion of the public's unappropriated water resource. High Plains A & M, LLC v. Se. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist., 120 P.3d 710, 717 (Colo.2005); see also Chatfield E. Well Co., Ltd. v. Chatfield E. Prop. Owners Ass'n, 956 P.2d 1260, 1268 (Colo.1998); New Mercer Ditch Co. v. Armstrong, 21 Colo. 357, 365-66, 40 P. 989, 992 (1895). The value of the water right resides in its adjudicated priority vis-à-vis all other adjudicated priorities to the use of waters of the natural stream, which includes surface water and tributary ground water. Empire Lodge Homeowners' Ass'n v. Moyer, 39 P.3d 1139, 1147-48 (Colo.2001). Under section 37-92-103(12), C.R.S. (2008), `Water right' means a right to use in accordance with its priority a certain portion of the waters of the state by reason of the appropriation of the same. See Santa Fe Trail Ranches Prop. Owners Ass'n v. Simpson, 990 P.2d 46, 53-54, 58 (Colo.1999). The primary value of a water right resides in its priority relative to other water rights and the right to use the resource, not in the continuous tangible possession of the resource. Navajo Dev. Co., Inc. v. Sanderson, 655 P.2d 1374, 1377 (Colo.1982). The Colorado doctrine of water use is propelled by need and bounded by scarcity. Diversion of water by itself cannot ripen into a water right if the water is not beneficially used; the basis, measure, and extent of a Colorado appropriative water right turns upon its actual beneficial use. Santa Fe Trail Ranches, 990 P.2d at 53-54; see also Shirola v. Turkey Cañon Ranch Ltd. Liab. Co., 937 P.2d 739, 747-48 (Colo.1997). Read into every decree for a water right is the implied condition that no more water can be diverted from the stream than is needed for an actual beneficial use. Weibert v. Rothe Brothers, 200 Colo. 310, 316, 618 P.2d 1367, 1371 (1980) (The owner of a water right has no right as against a junior appropriator to waste water, i.e., to divert more than can be used beneficially ... [t]hese limitations are read into every water right decree by implication.) (citing Pulaski Irrigating Ditch Co. v. City of Trinidad, 70 Colo. 565, 203 P. 681 (1922); Baca Ditch Co. v. Coulson, 70 Colo. 192, 198 P. 272 (1921); Fort Lyon Canal Co. v. Chew, 33 Colo. 392, 81 P. 37 (1905)). The nature of the property at issue in an adverse possession case is critical in determining what acts by the claimant are required for adverse possession. Palmer Ranch, Ltd. v. Suwansawasdi, 920 P.2d 870, 873 (Colo.App.1996). Adjudicated irrigation water rights are at issue in this case. Although the typical decree for an irrigation water right specifies only a flow rate of water taken through the headgate, expressed in cubic feet per second, [3] the actual measure of a perfected irrigation water right consists of the amount of water, expressed in acre feet, beneficially consumed in exercising the right over a representative historical period of time in accordance with its decree at its place of use. High Plains A & M, LLC, 120 P.3d at 710 (Over an extended period of time a pattern of historic diversions and use under the decreed right at its place of use will mature and become the measure of the appropriation for change purposes.); In re Application for Water Rights of Midway Ranches Prop. Owners' Ass'n Inc., 938 P.2d 515, 521 (Colo.1997). In Weibert, we emphasized the longstanding doctrine that water rights decreed for irrigation are limited to the duty of water. 200 Colo. at 316-17, 618 P.2d at 1371. This principle of beneficial use recognizes that any given acreage of cropland needs and is limited to a productive amount of water. The duty of water is: [T]hat measure of water, which, by careful management and use, without wastage, is reasonably required to be applied to any given tract of land for such period of time as may be adequate to produce therefrom a maximum amount of such crops as ordinarily are grown thereon. It is not a hard and fast unit of measurement, but is variable according to conditions. Id. Thus, water cases often necessitate testimony analyzing the nature and extent of crop production on various parcels of land, in order to determine the extent of allowable beneficial use that can be made of the water right. See, e.g., Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Co. v. City of Golden, 44 P.3d 241, 255 (Colo.2002) (recognizing that use of water for irrigation is limited in time and volume by the needs of the land ...) (citations omitted). The amount of beneficial consumptive use belonging to an irrigation water right is typically demonstrated by proof addressing a number of factors centering on the crops that have been grown on the land actually irrigated. See Developing a Water Supply in Colorado: the Role of an Engineer, 3 Univ. Denv. Water L.Rev. 373, 379-80 (2000). In addition to standing for the proposition that an adverse possession claimant must demonstrate actual beneficial use of the deeded owner's water right, our cases establish that no person can revive or adversely possess an abandoned water right. Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. Fulton Irrigating Ditch Co., 108 Colo. 482, 486, 120 P.2d 196, 199 (1941) (After abandonment becomes an accomplished fact, the attempt to exercise the abandoned right differs in no respect from an attempt by one who never had a right to assert....); Se. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist. v. Twin Lakes Associates, Inc., 770 P.2d 1231, 1238 (Colo.1989) (Any attempt by the former owner to claim a priority relating back to the priority date of the former right is of no avail.). Thus, adverse possession cases should address whether the deeded owner abandoned the water right. See, e.g., Nesbitt v. Jones, 140 Colo. 412, 421, 344 P.2d 949, 953 (1959); Archuleta, 140 P.3d at 286. If the right has been abandoned, the water belonging to it for beneficial use reverts to the stream, and the right cannot be revived through adverse possession. Instead, the adverse possession claimant must show that the adjudicated irrigation water right at issue was continuously put to beneficial use on lands irrigated by the claimant, rather than the deeded owner, during the statutory period. Section 37-92-402(10), C.R.S. (2008), of Colorado's 1969 Water Right Adjudication and Administration Act provides that ten or more years of non-use of a water right by the person entitled to use the right creates a rebuttable presumption of abandonment to the stream of the right, or that part of the right, which has not been exercised. Abandonment is defined as the termination of a water right in whole or in part as a result of the intent of the owner thereof to discontinue permanently the use of all or part of the water available thereunder. § 37-92-103(2), C.R.S. (2008) (emphasis added). A presumption of abandonment requires the concurrence of two elements: non-use for the statutory period (ten years) and the intent to abandon. Se. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist., 770 P.2d at 1238. This presumption may be rebutted by evidence of the owner's intent not to abandon the right; evidence rebutting the presumption of abandonment may include such acts as loaning or leasing the water to others or good faith efforts to sell the water right. See § 37-80.5-104.5, C.R.S. (2008); § 37-83-105, C.R.S. (2008); § 37-92-103(2), C.R.S. (2008) (providing for tolling in specified circumstances); Se. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist., 770 P.2d at 1238; Knapp v. Colo. River Water Conservation Dist., 131 Colo. 42, 54-55, 279 P.2d 420, 425, 426 (1955); Mason v. Hills Land & Cattle Co., 119 Colo. 404, 408, 204 P.2d 153, 155-56 (1949). Abandonment of a water right may occur in whole or in part; the amount of water abandoned reverts to the stream, to the benefit of other rights in order of their adjudicated priority. Se. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist., 770 P.2d at 1238; Rocky Mountain Power Co. v. White River Elec. Ass'n, 151 Colo. 45, 51, 376 P.2d 158, 161 (1962). Evidence rebutting the presumption of abandonment may also be adduced by an adverse possession claimant who demonstrates his or her continuous use of the deeded owner's interest in the adjudicated water right. As demonstrated by our cases, adverse possession is very difficult to establish. [4] Our cases repeatedly reject such claims. Id.; see also German Ditch & Reservoir Co. v. Platte Val. Irrigation Co., 67 Colo. 390, 178 P. 896 (1919); Mountain Meadow Ditch and Irrigation Co., 130 Colo. 537, 277 P.2d 527 (1954). In Loshbaugh v. Benzel, 133 Colo. 49, 61-62, 291 P.2d 1064, 1070-71 (1956), we stated, It is not reasonable to suppose that priority of right to water, where water is scarce, or likely to become so, will be lightly sacrificed or surrendered by its owner. Nor should the owner of such a right be held to have surrendered it or merged it except upon reasonably clear and satisfactory evidence. (citing Rominger v. Squires, 9 Colo. 327, 329, 12 P. 213, 214 (1886)). We required the adverse claimant in Loshbaugh to prove that his possession to the claimed amount of water was actual, adverse, hostile to the owner and under a claim of right, and open, notorious, exclusive, and continuous. Id. The Loshbaugh case is instructive for the litany of evidence produced about lands that were or were not irrigated at various times, consensual arrangements between those irrigating from the ditch, unwarranted assumptions about percentage shares in the ditch understood or misunderstood at the time of purchase by successors-in-interest, and the wash-out and non-replacement of diversion works. Based upon the evidence in that case, we held the adverse possession claimant had not presented sufficient evidence to support his adverse possession claim. Id. at 63, 291 P.2d 1064. ([T]here is no competent evidence of adverse possession subsequent to 1922, for any period of time under any statute of limitations which would entitle plaintiff to one half of the water in the L and C Ditch by adverse possession.). The fundamental question in an adverse possession water case is whether, under all the surrounding circumstances, the practices of water use between the rival claimants are consistent or inconsistent with the claimed adverse use. V-Heart Ranch, 690 P.2d at 1275-76. The water court should evaluate all relevant circumstances surrounding the use of water in evaluating adverse possession claims to water rights. Id. at 1276. We recognized in V-Heart Ranch that formal and informal arrangements between water right holders in an irrigation ditch are often dictated more by day-to-day circumstances than by legal rights of ownership. Id. at 1275. Typically, rotation agreements involving irrigation rights indicate cooperation and permission among water users. By rotating the entire flow of the adjudicated priority for the ditch onto certain fields at various times in round robin fashion, the irrigators optimize use of the ditch's gravity flow to the irrigated fields served by the ditch. Such arrangements do not typically compromise the title interests of the individual irrigators, and do not demonstrate adverse possession except in unusual circumstances. For this reason, examining the issue of rotational water use, we have said that the adoption of mutually agreeable rotation systems by the owners of water rights cannot be deemed conclusive proof of either the creation or the abandonment of particular ownership rights. Id.; see also Strole v. Guymon, 37 P.3d 529, 533 (Colo.App.2001) (concluding that the rotation system of a ditch could not be used to quantify the plaintiff's water rights and that the plaintiff's water rights exist independently of any rotation agreement). We summarize our precedent applicable to the actual use element of adverse possession in an irrigation water rights case. Because actual beneficial use is the basis, measure, and extent of an appropriative water right for irrigation in Colorado, an adverse possession claimant to an irrigation water right has the burden to establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, the amount of water expressed in acre feet belonging to the deeded owner's water right that the adverse claimant has placed to beneficial consumptive use. [5] Quantification proof is essential because the effect of a successful adverse possession claim is to transfer, in whole or in part, the ownership of the irrigation water right's beneficial consumptive use entitlement, under its adjudicated priority, from the deeded owner to the adverse claimant. Water that an adverse possession claimant has intercepted in the ditch from the deeded owner's interest in the adjudicated irrigation water right, but which has not been beneficially consumed by either the claimant or the deeded owner, presumably has returned to the tributary aquifer or the surface stream. Mere diversion of water cannot be counted as an actual beneficial use upon which adverse possession can be founded because to make [a diversion of water into a constitutional appropriation] it must be... actually applied to the land. High Plains A & M, LLC, 120 P.3d at 717 (quoting Farmers' High Line Canal & Reservoir Co. v. Southworth, 13 Colo. 111, 114-15, 21 P. 1028, 1029 (1889)). In addition, return flow water belongs to the stream as part of the public's water resource for use by others in order of their decreed priorities. Nevius v. Smith, 86 Colo. 178, 181, 279 P. 44, 45 (1929) ([W]e have held that seepage and percolation belong to the river.).