Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Water – July 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
When you’re discussing water in Colorado, nothing is simple, and augmentation is no exception. The Colorado Foundation for Water Education defines it as “Replacing the quantity of water depleted from the stream system caused by an out-of-priority diversion. When adjudicated and operated to replace depletions to the stream system, the out-of-priority diversion may continue even though a call has been placed on the stream by senior decreed rights.”
That’s about as clear as what used to flow in California Gulch. So let’s look at how it works on the ground in this area. Suppose you buy a rural homesite. You’ll need water, so you drill a well.
When you pump water from a well, you take it from an aquifer — an underground pool which is probably connected to a local stream. The more water you take from the aquifer, the less there is for the creek, and for downstream users in general.
They were there before you, and so they have “senior water rights.” State law says you can’t injure their senior rights by pumping water from your junior well. So what can you do? There’s enough water on your property for your well, but the law says you can’t pump it.
But you could, if you could find a way to protect the senior users. So you find senior water rights, and buy enough to replace the water your well consumes, and then let that water flow on down the river for senior users.
This transaction is a form of augmentation. Water conservancy districts, like Upper Arkansas in Salida and Upper Gunnison River in Gunnison, act as retailers to simplify the transaction. They buy senior water rights in bulk, then sell small portions (typically 1/10 of an acre-foot) as augmentation water for rural homesites.
