Abandonment of Water Rights: The water court can declare a water right abandoned if it is shown that the water has not been put to a beneficial use for period of 10 years. The owners may rebut this presumption if they can show that there was no intent to abandon. The State Engineer puts together a ranking list of active decreed water right priorities and an abandonment list that is available to the public.

Absolute Decree: A water court decree recognizing that a water right has been perfected, or made real, by placing preciously unappropriated water to a beneficial use.

Anti-speculation doctrine: codified at 37-92-103(3)(a), 15 C.R.S. (1990)); states:

(3)(a) "Appropriation" means the application of a specified portion of the waters of the state to a beneficial use pursuant to the procedures prescribed by law; but no appropriation of water, either absolute or conditional, shall be held to occur when the proposed appropriation is based upon the speculative sale or transfer of the appropriative rights to persons not parties to the proposed appropriation, as evidenced by either of the following:

(I) The purported appropriator of record does not have either a legally vested interest or a reasonable expectation of procuring such interest in the lands or facilities to be served by such appropriation, unless such appropriator is a governmental agency or an agent in fact for the persons proposed to be benefited by such appropriation.

(II) The purported appropriator of record does not have a specific plan and intent to divert, store, or otherwise capture, possess, and control a specific quantity of water for specific beneficial uses. 37-92-103(3)(a), 15 C.R.S (1990).

Municipalities under section 37-92-103(3)(a), may be decreed conditional water rights based solely on its projected future needs, and without firm contractual commitments or agency relationships, but a municipality's entitlement to such a decree is subject to the water court's determination that the amount conditionally appropriated is consistent with the municipality's reasonably anticipated requirements based on substantiated projections of future growth. However, municipalities must do more than represent to the water court that if they had water, they would be able to grow.

Appropriation: Appropriation is the act or plan to divert, store, or otherwise capture, possess, and control the water.

Aquifer: An aquifer is a water-bearing geological formation.

Augmentation Decree: A water court decree that allows a water user to divert out to priority by replacing water depletions made to the stream system.

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Beneficial Use: The beneficial use is how much water is actually used and determines your water right. The beneficial use encompasses reasonably efficient practices to put that water to use without waste such as the type of use and how the water is appropriated and applied. Allowed beneficial uses include the amount required to transport the water to where it will be used, and the amount needed for the consumptive use. The consumptive use over a representative historic time period is the measure and limit of a water right. The consumptive use is calculated by volume of acre-feet when a water right is changed to another type of use, point of diversion, or place of use. Generally recognized beneficial uses include: 1) Colorado Water Conservation Board instream flows, 2) Commercial, 3) Domestic, 4) Dust suppression, 5) Fire protection, 6) Fish and wildlife culture, 7) Flood control, 8) Hydroelectric power, 9) Industrial, 10) Irrigation, 11) Mined land reclamation, 12) Municipal, 13) Nature centers, 14) Recreation, 15) Recreational in-channel diversions, 16) Release from storage for boating and fishing, 17) Snowmaking, 18) Livestock watering.

Call: Is for curtailment of junior rights that would interfere with the ability of senior rights to their share of the natural available share.

Change of Water Rights Decree: Is a decree which retains the senior priority of the original water right. The decree may allow different uses, different point of diversions, or different place of use. A change cannot exceed the beneficial historic consumptive use of the historic return flow pattern to prevent enlargement of the water right or injury to other water rights.

Conditional Decree: A water court decree recognizing a priority date for a new proposed appropriation. The priority becomes fixed when the water is actually placed to beneficial use. The applicant for a conditional decree must show that there is unappropriated water available, and must have a plan to divert, store, or otherwise capture, possess, and control the water.

Conjunctive Use: Conjunctive use is the use of surface and groundwater together to meet the growing needs of increased use.

Consumptive Use: Water use that permanently with-draws water from its source; water that is no longer available because it has evaporated, been transpired by plants, incorporated into products or crops, consumed by people or livestock, or otherwise removed from the immediate water environment.

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Designated Groundwater: Designated groundwater is water cannot be used to recharge or supplement continuously flowing surface streams and is managed by the Colorado Ground Water Commission ("Commission"). There are currently 8 designated basins established by the Commission in the eastern Colorado plains (Bijou, Camp Creek, Kiowa, Lost Creek, Northern High Plains, Southern High Plains, Upper Big Sandy, Upper Black Squirrel Creek, and the Upper Crow Creek).

Direct Flow Right: A right that takes its water directly from the surface stream or tributary groundwater for application of beneficial use. It is expressed in cubic feet per second of flow (cfs).

Discharge: Discharge is the contribution of water from the aquifer to the surface stream or spring.

Diversion or Divert: Remove or control water from or within its natural course or location, by means of a water structure such as a ditch, pipeline, boat chute, whitewater course, reservoir, or well.

Domestic Preference: The Colorado Constitution provides in times of shortage that domestic water use has preference over any other purpose, and that agricultural use has preference over manufacturing use.

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Exchange Decree: A water court decree that allows an upstream diverter to take the water that would usually flow to a downstream diverter. The upstream diverter must provide the downstream diverter with a suitable replacement supply of water, in amount, timing, and quality, from some other source.

Federal Reserved Right: A right to previously unappropriated water expressly created by federal law. Federal reserved rights may also be created by implication, meaning that even if such rights were not named explicitly, Congress implied that it was necessary to reserve water rights for use on federal lands such as tribal reservations, national parks, forests, and monuments (see Federal Reserved Water Rights, below).

Geothermal Resources: The Colorado Geothermal Resources Act regulates subsurface geothermal fluids. The geothermal fluids require permits from the State Engineer for groundwater extraction.

Groundwater use Rights: Pursuant to the 1965 Ground Water Management Act, all new wells that diverts tributary, nontributary, Denver Basin groundwater, or geothermal resources must have a permit. The use allowed in the well permit for groundwater depend on the source of the groundwater and the type of beneficial use which is generally divided into domestic, irrigation and livestock use.

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Imported Water/ Developed: Water transported from one stream system or aquifer to another which are naturally unconnected. Imported water may be used in augmentation or exchange plans or reused to extinction.

Injury: The action of another that causes or may cause the holders of decreed water rights to suffer loss of water in the time, place, and amount they are entitled to use that water.

Instream Flow: The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) was created for the purpose of aiding in the protection and development of the waters of the state welfare and the benefit of present and future inhabitants. Instream flows are minimum stream flows or lake levels needed to preserve the natural environment to a reasonable degree. Only Colorado Water Conservation Board CWCB can hold instream flow water rights.

Instream Flow Water Right: A water right held by the state to protect or improve the water-dependent natural environment.

Nontributary Groundwater: Nontributay groundwater is water outside of a designated groundwater basin whose pumping will not affect surface water levels within 100 years. An overlying landowner may use nontributary groundwater at a rate of 1 percent per year, assuming a 100-year life of the aquifer.

Not Nontributary Ground Water and Nontributary Denver Basin Groundwater: Denver Basin groundwater refers to deep groundwater within the Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, and Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers that are outside the boundaries of any designated ground water basin in existence on January 1, 1985, the withdrawal of which will, within one hundred years, deplete the flow of a natural stream at an annual rate greater than one-tenth of one percent of the annual rate of withdrawal. C.R.S. 37-90-103(10.7). There are two types of Denver Basin groundwater, not nontributary and nontributary. Both are allocated to overlying landowners like nontributary water, at a rate of 1 percent per year assuming a 100-year life of the aquifer.

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Over-Appropriation: Over-appropriation occurs when a watershed or stream has more court approved water rights decrees on that stream than the average water availability. Over-appropriation occurs from physical limitations influencing stream flows and tributary aquifers which limits when, if at all, a water right may be used depending on where a water right falls within the prior appropriation system.

Permits: A well permit and commence drilling your well you must be approved by the Colorado Division of Water Resources, also known as the State Engineer's Office. To obtain a water right decree for tributary groundwater a well permit application must be filed with the State Engineer's Office and submit additional documentation to the water court. The application factors considered are the amount of groundwater available, the potential for groundwater use to injure other existing water rights, and whether the withdrawal will be unreasonably wasteful. Other agencies that allocate and administer groundwater are the Colorado Ground Water Commission, and local Ground Water Management Districts. Geothermal resources are managed by the "Geothermal Well Rules."

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Recharge: Recharge, also called inflows, occur when surface water percolates through soil or geologic fractures into the aquifer.

Recreational In-channel Division Right: A water right held by a local governmental entity for structures that control the flow of water for rafting and kayaking.

Return Flows: Return flows are water that returns to streams or ground after it has been applied to beneficial use. This excess water is not considered wasted or abandoned water. A return flow may be in the form of a surface flow, or as an inflow of tributary groundwater.

Storage: Storage refers to the capability of the aquifer to hold water for a period of time.

Storage Right: A right to impound water in priority for later use.

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Tributary Groundwater: Tributary Groundwater is found below the Earth's surface and is hydrologically connected to rivers. Sometimes referred to as shallow groundwater, tributary groundwater can impact rivers by recharge or discharge. Water added to a shallow groundwater system can increase the flow of the surface stream; conversely, well pumping can deplete the surface stream.

Water Court: The Water Court can confirm a water right or changed a water right to another use by adjudication. The Water Court makes its findings based on diversion records, use records, the historic consumptive use, and the position of the water right within the prior appropriation system.

Water Right: The Doctrine of priority of rights is the right to use water of a natural stream when water would be naturally available to it in order of priority for diversion at its decreed location under its decreed priority in the amount of its decreed beneficial use. See C.R.S. 37-82-101 for water subject to appropriation.

Water Value: The value of your water right or you right to use the water (all water in Colorado is owned by the public as a public resource) depends on its priority of appropriation and the availability of water each year (first to appropriate and put the water to beneficial use).

Waste: A water user may not take from the stream any more water than is needed for beneficial use when the diversion is made. It is not the amount allowed on the face of the water right decree but the amount of water put to beneficial use which sets the water right. If the decree is more water than what is beneficially used it will be considered waste.

Types of water rights

Absolute - A right which includes the legal recognition that the holder of a conditional right has perfected that right by actually diverting water and applying it to beneficial use.

Conditional - A right to perfect a water right with a certain priority upon the completion with reasonable diligence of the appropriation upon which the conditional right was based.

Junior - The prior appropriation doctrine for water rights that "first-in-time" is "first-in-right." In times of water shortage, rights with junior priorities are curtailed to assure full water supply to more senior rights.

Senior - Older or more senior water rights have higher priority in times of scarcity. See "Junior" above.

Storage - The impoundment of water for later application.

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