East Cherry Creek Valley Water & Sanitation District v. Rangeview Metropolitan District

COATS, Justice.

East Cherry Creek appealed directly to this court from an order of the water court, construing and modifying a 1985 decree that adjudicated use rights to nontributary Arapahoe aquifer ground water. In its current order, the water court authorized Rangeview, the state’s lessee, to construct additional wells as necessary to withdraw the state’s full, decreed entitlement, and it removed the volumetric limits of the original decree on individual wells. The court reasoned that statutory and rules changes subsequent to the decree would permit Rangeview greater flexibility in…