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 Rights 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
The acquiring, changing, using and protecting of 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 six active cases where we are the applicant and three 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. Four of the applications are for reasonable diligence related to Plum Creek water rights and Roth-Sublette Recharge Project. One case is for an application for an augmentation plan on Plum Creek, which would replace Town’s out-of-priority diversions on East Plum Creek and Plum Creek. There are sixteen 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 2026, Castle Rock Water (CRW) has spent $716,586 of our budgeted $653,008 on costs related to water court cases. A budget transfer in the amount of $275,000 will be completed to account for additional legal costs to date and through the end of the year. The lions share of the costs have been associated with CRW’s work obtaining a water right for the Platte Valley Water Partnership project. This work was successful, and on 10/2/2026, CRW received that water right in huge victory for long-term water supply planning for the Town. This storage water right provides a maximum annual diversion of 16,037 AF in the Fremont Butte Reservoir and forebays on the South Platte River near Fort Morgan.