San Antonio, Los Pinos and Conejos River Acequia Preservation Ass'n v. Special Improvement District No. 1

Summary

The Colorado Supreme Court reviewed challenges to the 2012 Annual Replacement Plan of Special Improvement District No. 1 of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. The court held that the water court properly applied the law-of-the-case doctrine, was not required to stay operation of the annual plan during objections, and correctly upheld the use of Closed Basin Project water and the treatment of augmentation-plan wells. The court affirmed the water court's orders and judgment.

Holdings

1. The water court was not authorized to reconsider the Amended Plan's methodology that the Colorado Supreme Court had approved in San Antonio; those prior appellate rulings were binding law of the case.
2. Courts are not required to stay operation of an annual replacement plan until all challenges to it are resolved.
3. Closed Basin Project water was an adequate and suitable source of replacement water because it could simultaneously satisfy Colorado's Rio Grande Compact obligations and replace injurious depletions.
4. Including augmentation-plan wells as Subdistrict wells for calculating total groundwater depletions did not violate the Amended Plan or the 2010 Decree.
5. The omission of the required separate list of augmentation-plan wells was a technical violation, but it did not invalidate the 2012 ARP because the omission was minor and caused no harm or prejudice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the water court could reconsider methodologies and other issues concerning the Amended Plan that had been resolved in the prior appeal.
2. Whether operation of the 2012 Annual Replacement Plan had to be stayed until all objections were resolved and whether the State Engineer had to curtail all Subdistrict well pumping.
3. Whether Closed Basin Project water was an adequate and suitable source of replacement water under the 2012 ARP and the Closed Basin Decree.
4. Whether inclusion of augmentation-plan wells as Subdistrict wells for calculating groundwater depletions violated the Amended Plan or the 2010 Decree.
5. Whether failure to provide a separate list of augmentation-plan wells invalidated the 2012 ARP.

Disposition

affirmed