Concerning the Application for Water Rights of the City and County of Broomfield in Adams, Broomfield, Boulder, and…

Summary

The court affirmed a decree granting Broomfield conditional appropriative rights of exchange based on nine substitute supplies it owned or controlled and two additional sources it did not yet own or control. It held that such an application is governed as a conditional water-right application, not as an augmentation plan, and therefore is subject to the first-step and can-and-will requirements. Those requirements must be applied separately to each proposed substitute source, and Broomfield failed to satisfy them for the remaining sources.