## Facts

- Glacier View Meadows, a residential developer, sought approval of two consolidated applications for a plan of augmentation to serve up to 1,892 single-family units using future wells for in-house domestic use only.
- The proposed wells would pump tributary groundwater outside any designated groundwater basin and would operate out of priority absent augmentation.
- As replacement supply, Glacier View Meadows owned 75 preferred shares in Mountain and Plains Irrigation Company, entitling it to both direct-flow and storage (reservoir) water, historically used year-round by prior owners.
- The plan contemplated using reservoir water attributable to those shares to replace the wells’ consumptive depletions through releases to the river system.
- The replacement reservoirs, release points, residential units, and return-flow points were all located upstream of the objectors’ diversion points on the Cache LaPoudre River.
- Cache LaPoudre Water Users Association and North Poudre Irrigation Company objected, asserting the plan would injure vested senior rights under prior appropriation.
- The case was submitted on a stipulated record, including stipulations concerning the availability and character of water attributable to the Mountain and Plains shares.
- The water court approved the augmentation plan; objectors appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the proposed plan of augmentation replaced out-of-priority well depletions in time, location, and amount sufficient to prevent injury to senior appropriators.
2. Whether irrigation-company shares representing combined direct-flow and storage rights could lawfully serve as the source of replacement water for domestic well pumping under an augmentation plan.
3. Whether the water court’s decree adequately reflected the parties’ stipulations and imposed conditions necessary to limit the plan to the replacement supply proved and to the domestic-use assumptions on which depletion calculations depended.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed approval of the augmentation plan but remanded for modifications to the decree.
- The Court held that an augmentation plan may rely on irrigation-company shares and reservoir releases to replace consumptive depletions from new domestic wells, provided senior rights are protected from injury.
- The Court required the decree to be revised to conform to the parties’ stipulations regarding the amount and character of the replacement supply available through the shares.
- The Court directed clarification of decree limitations tied to the in-house domestic use restriction that formed the basis for consumptive-use and replacement calculations.

## Legal Principles

- A plan of augmentation may authorize out-of-priority diversions only if it replaces resulting depletions in time, location, and amount so that other appropriators are not injuriously affected.
- Tributary groundwater pumping outside a designated groundwater basin is administered under prior appropriation and may proceed only through a legally sufficient augmentation plan when out of priority.
- Shares in an irrigation company embodying direct-flow and storage components can be a lawful augmentation source if the decree ensures replacement is adequate, reliable, and enforceable.
- When a case is submitted on stipulations establishing the augmentation supply and operational assumptions, the decree must conform to those stipulations and cannot imply a larger or different replacement entitlement.
- Where depletion calculations depend on a specific, limited use (here, exclusive in-house domestic use), decree conditions must clearly restrict operations to that use to prevent unaccounted-for injury.

## Conclusion

The Court allowed Glacier View Meadows to proceed with out-of-priority domestic wells under an augmentation plan supported by irrigation-company shares and reservoir releases, but required decree modifications to match the stipulated replacement supply and to enforce strict limits consistent with the domestic-use basis for the plan.


Cache LaPoudre Water Users Ass'n v. Glacier View Meadows, 191 Colo. 53, 550 P.2d 288 (Colo. 1976)