Opinion ID: 2823844
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis

Text: Â¶17Â Â Â Â Although the history of the Subject Water Rights in this case spans over 100 years and involves multiple prior decrees, the legal question we must answer is actually quite narrow: whether an applicant in a change proceeding may conduct an HCU analysis on acreage beyond that lawfully associated with the relevant water right. Specifically, we must choose between two sets of acreage. Applicants argue that they may base their HCU analysis on the Enlarged Acres, i.e., the 462 acres that the Bell Ditches have combined to irrigate historically as determined by the vacated 1977 Decree. The Engineers counter (and the water court agreed) that Applicants must restrict their analysis to the Original Acres, i.e., the 350 Acres on the Ranch contemplated by the Original Decree. Â¶18Â Â Â Â To resolve this dispute, we first examine the basic principles of Colorado water law as they pertain to HCU analysis. We then apply those principles to this case and conclude that Applicants must confine their HCU analysis to the Original Acres.
Â¶19Â Â Â Â The touchstone of Coloradoâs prior appropriation law is beneficial use. As such, an appropriator of water perfects a water right âonly by application of a specified quantity of water to an actual beneficial use.â Burlington Ditch, 256 P.3d at 661. The General Assembly has defined âbeneficial useâ as âthat amount of water that is reasonable and appropriate under reasonably efficient practices to accomplish without waste the purpose for which the appropriation is lawfully made.â Â§ 37-92-103(4), C.R.S. (2014). In conformance with this overarching principle, we have recognized that âthe right to change a water right is limited to that amount of water actually used beneficially pursuant to the decree at the appropriatorâs place of use.â Santa Fe Trail Ranches Prop. Owners Assân v. Simpson, 990 P.2d 46, 54 (Colo. 1999) (emphasis added). Â¶20Â Â Â Â This focus on beneficial use in a change proceeding complements Coloradoâs concomitant rule of preventing injury to others with vested water rights. See Burlington Ditch, 256 P.3d at 674 (noting that âthe key principle underlying our system of appropriationâ is âno injury to other water rightsâ). Thus, when the owner of a water right files an application to change its use, the water court âscrutinize[s] proposed alterations to existing decreed rights that may injure other decreed water rights.â Id. at 662. To that end, âThe amount of water available for use under the changed right . . . is subject to a calculation of historical beneficial consumptive use lawfully made under the decreed prior appropriation.â Id. (emphasis added). This HCU analysis âguards against speculation and waste, ensuring optimum use and reliability in the prior appropriation system.â Id. at 661. Â¶21Â Â Â Â Crucially, in practical terms, this HCU analysis does not merely measure the amount of water actually used over a representative period. Rather, a proper HCU analysis measures the amount of water actually and lawfully used. In a change proceeding involving, as here, a decree delineating the specific acreage to be irrigated,the amount of water lawfully used is that water used âover a representative period of time for the appropriation made.â Jones Ditch, 147 P.3d at 14 (emphasis added) (holding that although the original decree did not expressly limit consumptive use of the water to any specific acreage, the applicant could not lawfully enlarge the associated water right beyond the amount of water necessary to irrigate the lands for which the appropriation was made). Therefore, any HCU analysis of such a decreed right may only consider water applied to acreage expressly authorized by the relevant decree, i.e., the water lawfully used for the appropriation made. See Santa Fe, 990 P.2d at 52 (â[Amn undecreed change of use of a water right cannot be the basis for calculating the amount of consumable water that can be decreed for change to another use.â). Â¶22Â Â Â Â With these principles in mind, we now turn to the present case and determine the validity of Applicantsâ proposed HCU analysis.
Â¶23Â Â Â Â Pursuant to their change application, Applicants seek to conduct their HCU analysis on the Enlarged Acres rather than the Original Acres. As we have established, neither the Original Decree nor any subsequent decree authorized irrigation of the Enlarged Acres. Thus, Applicants seek to perform an HCU analysis on land not lawfully associated with the Subject Water Rights. Our precedent makes plain that this is impermissible. Â¶24Â Â Â Â In Jones Ditch, the applicant sought to change the use of a water right, requiring the water court âto determine the extent of the lawful historic useâ of the right. 147 P.3d at 12. The applicant contended that its ownership of the water right encompassed 700 acres that had been historically irrigated; the water court ruled, however, that the water right âextended only to the 344 acres that were irrigated when the [original] Decree was entered, and that the expanded irrigation [subsequent to the entry of that decree] could not be considered part of the [water rightâs] lawful historic use.â Id. We affirmed the water courtâs ruling, holding that âa water right decreed for irrigation purposes cannot lawfully be enlarged beyond the amount of water necessary to irrigate the lands for which the appropriation was made.â Id. at 14. Â¶25Â Â Â Â The same circumstances that we addressed in Jones Ditch are present here. As in that case, Applicants seek to consider acreage in their HCU analysis beyond that contemplated by the original appropriation. And, as in that case, black-letter principles of Colorado water law compel our conclusion that Applicantsâ HCU analysis of these rights âis limited to the . . . acres originally irrigated . . . no matter the number of acres that may have been subsequently irrigated.â See id. at 16 (emphasis added); see also V Bar Ranch LLC v. Cotten, 233 P.3d 1200, 1208 (Colo. 2010) (âWater which was appropriated for use on one parcel of land cannot be applied to new or different lands without a decree issued by the water court allowing the change in use.â). Therefore, because the Original Decree (the relevant decree here) applies only to the Original Acres, Applicants must confine their HCU analysis to those acres. Â¶26Â Â Â Â Applicants nevertheless attempt to distinguish Jones Ditch, pointing out that it involved a completed HCU analysis, whereas in this case, the very validity of Applicantsâ HCU analysis is at issue. Essentially, Applicants present a convoluted chicken-egg argument: They insist that the water court cannot foreclose their HCUanalysis on the Enlarged Acres until they actually conduct such an analysis on those acres. Framed differently, Applicants contend that the issue is not whether historical use of the Subject Water Rights has expanded geographically (i.e., from the Original Acres to the Enlarged Acres) but whether it has expanded quantitatively (i.e., involving a greater amount of water than that originally decreed). To resolve this quantitative question, Applicants argue, they should be permitted to conduct an HCU analysis of the Enlarged Acres. Â¶27Â Â Â Â Applicantsâ argument is unpersuasive. The purpose of an HCU analysis in a change proceeding is to determine the âamount of water available for use under the changed right.â Burlington Ditch, 256 P.3d at 662. As such, the analysis measures the amount of water lawfully used under the existing water right. See id. But as our case law makes clear, irrigation of lands not contemplated by the originally decreed appropriation is unlawful absent a subsequent applicable decree. See, e.g., id. (âAn irrigation water right cannot be lawfully enlarged for application to acreage beyond that for which the appropriation is accomplished . . . in the absence of an adjudicated priority for the enlargement.â); V Bar Ranch, 233 P.3d at 1209 (âAn appropriator may not enlarge an appropriation, even if the enlarged use does not go beyond the decreed amount, without establishing all of the elements of an independent appropriation . . . .â (emphasis added)). Here, no valid decree for the Subject Water Rights features the Enlarged Acres. Thus, Applicants may not include these acres in their HCU analysis. 5