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THE BI JO LI IRREWAITION SYSTEM
LOMMISSIONERS
� •r• Phone(970)867.2222
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867-2294
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74:"kl :,, 229 Prospect St.
P.O.Box 972
RECEIVED Fort Morgan, CO 80701
Board of County Commissioners
Weld County
P.O. Box 758
Greeley, CO 80632
Re: Request for Assistance dated July 2, 2012
Dear County Commissioners:
Bijou Irrigation received your July 2, 2012 letter, and considered it at a Board meeting on July 9.
This is Bijou's reply.
The Bijou system consists of both an irrigation company and an irrigation district, which serve
approximately 25,000 acres of irrigated land, mostly in Morgan County, with a small portion in
Weld County. Bijou owns a portfolio of both senior and junior water rights that include direct
flow irrigation rights, storage irrigation rights, and augmentation water rights that support
approximately 200 wells owned by Bijou shareholders and other wells in Morgan County that
are not part of the Bijou augmentation plan, but for which Bijou runs recharge water under
agreements with landowners who built recharge sites. Bijou is keenly aware of the drought this
year and how it is affecting farmers all over eastern Colorado, and is also quite familiar with well
use and augmentation issues.
Bijou would point out that the core purpose of the prior appropriation doctrine that has governed
our water law since before statehood is to provide a clear basis for allocating water in times of
shortage. There have been many droughts in Colorado, and the prior appropriation doctrine has
served us well to provide a rule of law that creates predictability in the method of water
allocation and avoids the chaos of trying to allocate water on a case-by-case basis in times of
crisis. As you must surely understand, those with the most senior rights are supplied first, and
those with junior rights who are out-of-priority in times of shortage are curtailed, unless they
have augmentation plans that replace out of priority stream depletions. Bijou does not believe
that the current drought provides any justification for suddenly abandoning the core principles of
our water law system.
When the large scale development of wells in the South Platte basin began in the 1940s and 50s,
their impact on surface flows of the South Platte River was not fully understood. By the 1960s,
ground water science had developed and begun to define the nature of this impact. In 1969, our
water law was amended to bring the wells into the priority system. In 1974, the State Engineer
The Bijou Irrigation District - The Bijou Irrigation Company
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2012-1840
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adopted Rules and Regulations that govern well pumping. Since that time,the proper legal
mechanism for allowing wells to pump has been the plan for augmentation. Bijou and its
farmers have been diligently developing its augmentation plan since 1972. Other Bijou
landowners are working on additional augmentation plans to cover wells they own that are not
part of the company plan. Over 100 recharge sites have been built and they provide the bulk of
the water supply for Bijou wells.When recharge credits fall short,Bijou by-passes its senior
rights to fully cover the well depletions under its plan. Other well owners in the basin have had a
full and fair opportunity to develop their own augmentation plans during the past 40 years.Bijou
sees no reason why it should now be asked to unilaterally and gratuitously sacrifice yield from its
farmers'water rights to benefit well owners in Weld County who have not developed adequate
augmentation plans.
The specific request made in your July 2 letter is that Bijou farmers"subordinate their water
rights to any depletion to the South Platte River resulting from well pumping by these farmers
this summer." In light of the State Engineer's policy against selective subordination,the legal
result of agreeing to this request would be to assign all of the Bijou water rights a priority equal
to the most junior well to which subordination occurs,for as long as any depletions from this
summer's well pumping go on. Because well pumping has lagged impacts,this would
effectively subordinate all of Bijou's water rights for years or decades into the future. This is a
radical and far-reaching request. Aside from the fact that no one has offered anything to
compensate Bijou's farmers for even considering this request,it would severely restrict and limit
the use of Bijou's water rights for a long time and in ways that we cannot even evaluate today.
Since the debate about South Platte well augmentation began in earnest again in 2002,Bijou has
taken a consistent position-the same rules need to apply to everyone. In the case of tributary
wells,this means that they must operate under court decreed augmentation plans or be curtailed.
To the extent that Weld County farmers can legally operate under augmentation plans,they are
within their rights and will be allowed to do so. To the extent they are curtailed by the lack of
augmentation plans or adequate replacement water,there is no factual or legal basis for pumping
those wells.
Bijou has historically been willing to work with other water users within the confines of water
law to encourage the success of agriculture in Weld and Morgan Counties. It remains willing to
do so. However,your request to simply turn on wells in Weld County without proper
augmentation coverage does not fit in this framework and Bijou cannot agree to it.
Sincerely, 4
474 ,
1.0.._
Douglas A.Dill,President Mike Groves,President
BIJOU IRRIGATION COMPANY BIJOU IRRIGATION DISTRICT
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