To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
Through: David L. Corliss, Town Manager
From: Mark Marlowe, P.E., Director of Castle Rock Water
Lauren Moore, Water Resources Manager
Adriana Alfaro, Water Resources Program Analyst
Title
Update: Water Court Cases [Cases located in Douglas County, Weld County, and other areas near the Lower South Platte River]
Body
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Executive Summary
Acquiring, changing, using and protecting the Town’s water rights is a key component of the Town’s long-term renewable water plan as well as an important aspect of managing our groundwater rights. This requires the Town to file applications in Water Court and file oppositions where an application by another entity has the potential to injure the Town’s water rights. The Town is continuing to contract with Lyons Gaddis as our water attorneys and W.W. Wheeler Associates for water resources consulting support. The purpose of this memorandum is to update Town Council on the Town’s current Water Court cases.
The Town currently has three active cases where we are the applicant and eight pending cases where we will be the applicant. One of the cases is related to Castle Rock’s future water rights along the lower South Platte River at Fremont Butte Reservoir. Castle Rock is partnering with Parker Water & Sanitation District and Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District on the Platte Valley Water Partnership (PVWP) Project. Two of the applications are for changing the place of use for senior water rights (Deer Creek and Meadow Ditch) that the Town recently acquired. There are thirteen cases that the Town is or was opposing that could have a negative impact (i.e. injure) our water rights. These cases are summarized in Attachment A with additional details in the following discussion.
To date in 2025, Castle Rock Water has spent $646,292 of our budgeted $975,000 on costs related to water court cases.
Attachments
Staff Report
Attachment A: Summary of Cases