Concerning the Application for Amendment to Plans for Augmentation of Coors Brewing Company, in Jefferson, Adams…

Summary

The court affirmed the water court's ruling that Coors must adjudicate a new water right to obtain reuse or successive-use rights for return flows from native tributary water diverted under its augmentation plans. It held that such water remains native water, so unconsumed portions belong to the stream and are subject to appropriation unless reuse rights were separately decreed. The court also upheld the water court's interpretation that Coors's decrees expressly require all unconsumed water to be returned to the stream.