On May 25, 2017, the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 17-1990 addressing the 2015 Colorado Supreme Court decision of St. Jude’s Co. v. Roaring Fork Club LLC denying a private club’s ability to obtain an instream water right. Colorado, as a prior appropriation...
Last Year, WSMT blogged about whether water could be lawfully appropriated for Marijuana cultivation. 2/11/16 blog post. We provided three arguments why that would be allowed. Almost exactly a year later, the Division water referee agreed In Re...
After nearly a decade of uncertainty, Utahans and visitors alike are looking forward to certainty on two key issues: (1) public access to and (2) navigability of the Beehive State’s premier rivers. It all started with Conatser v. Johnson, where the Utah Supreme Court...
The Colorado Supreme Court recently addressed two previously unsettled issues that will impact other water users in Grand Valley Water Users Ass’n v. Busk-Ivanhoe, Inc., 14SA303 (2016). First, the Court held that imported transbasin water may not be stored in the...
The Colorado Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Upper Eagle Reg'l Water Authority v. Wolfe, 2016 CO 42 creates opportunities for owners of more than one conditional water right to make those rights absolute in advance of demonstrating the need for both, and the “catch”...
The question has become important to marijuana growers after the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision in Coats v. Dish Network, LLC, 303 P.3d 147 (Colo. 2015), where the Court held that an activity is only “lawful” if it violates neither state nor federal law. The issue...
The Colorado Supreme Court has now determined the standard for quantifying water rights that have already changed from one use to another in a prior case. This is an issue that has been very unclear for some time, and many water users have been uncertain about how...
Plan Ahead – In Colorado, a complex set of laws and regulations govern when and where water can be taken and used. The process of determining whether water is available for your needs and obtaining a legal water supply can be a lengthy process. Need Water Quickly? –...