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Monte Vista wins water-rights decree; council asked to OK 1-year lease to Rio Grande Water Conservation District
Summary
City water counsel and engineering consultant described a final water-court decree that establishes an augmentation plan and exchanges to help replace well depletions; staff asked the council to approve a one-year lease of stored water to the Rio Grande Water Conservation District to simplify accounting and replacement obligations.
Monte Vista water counsel Jeff Williams told the city council that on April 1 a water court entered a final decree in the city’s water-rights case filed in 2016, a development Williams called “good news for the city.”
The decree, Williams said, converts certain ditch water rights so the city can use their historical consumptive portion to replace depletions from municipal wells and authorizes exchanges that let the city store water in Rio Grande Reservoir for later release. “The plan for augmentation . . . explains how we're gonna replace the depletions from the city's wells,” Williams said.
Jordan Dimock, a technical consultant from SGM, described how the city has been operating under a substitute water-supply plan since 2021 and how the decree gives Monte Vista a long-term mechanism. He said the city’s eight wells produce depletions that reach the Rio Grande and other local streams and that the decree combines contracts, exchanges and augmentation to meet Division 3 groundwater rules.
Williams and Dimock said the decree also recognizes existing contracts with subdistricts that will replace depletions from unconfined and confined wells and leaves open the ability to add other sources later. Williams noted that some exchange rights remain conditional and will require a diligence filing to water court every six years to keep them active.
As a practical next step, Williams asked the council to consider approving a one-year lease of 50 acre-feet stored in Rio Grande Reservoir to the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, with an additional 8.03 acre-feet provided to cover unconfined-well depletions. He explained that “there's no money changing hands. We're essentially putting the water in their account. They will make our replacements for us, and it saves us the accounting trouble.”
Councilors asked technical questions about consumptive-use estimates for the Anderson Ditch water; Williams and Dimock said the consumptive amount was roughly 60 acre-feet and that the changed rights and exchanges provide a buffer that exceeds the city’s estimated depletion obligations.
No council motion to approve the one-year lease was recorded in the meeting. Williams and Dimock said staff would return with agreements and implementation details, including coordination with the Division of Water Resources and the Rio Grande Water Conservation District.
Why it matters: The decree gives Monte Vista a court-approved augmentation plan and operational tools—exchanges, changed ditch rights and contracts—to meet state groundwater rules that address long-term aquifer depletions. The proposed lease is a near-term accounting and implementation step staff say will streamline compliance and reduce day-to-day tracking burdens.
Staff expect follow-up agenda items laying out the lease terms and any long-term agreements with the water district or ditch companies.
