Change in Quantity of Water Right Affirmed

Abstract

In 1981 the Pueblo West Metropolitan District in Colorado filed an application for a change in the place, use, and point of diversion of the Wheel Ranch Ditch water right. A water court granted the request for change but imposed several conditions on the district, including a limitation on withdrawals. The district appealed the volumetric limitation, but an appellate court said that when an appropriator exercises his privilege to change a water right, he runs the risk of requantification. The diversion injured other users, said the court, in that out‐of‐priority diversions represented water that belonged to senior appropriators.