Mount Emmons Mining Co. v. Crested Butte
Issued January 28, 2002

Mount Emmons Mining Company applied to the Water Court (Div. 4) in 1998 for a conditional water right in Gunnison County. The Water Court denied the application, finding that the Applicant failed to establish sufficient water availability to support a conditional decree. The Water Court based its denial upon an earlier ruling out of the same Water Division that affected the Gunnison River basin. The earlier ruling found 60,000 acre-feet of water available above the Bureau of Reclamation’s “Aspinall Unit” for in-basin users such as Applicant, but also found that a contract with the Bureau was necessary to access that water.

The Colorado Supreme Court held that such a “user-specific contract” is not necessary to make the requisite showing of water availability under the "can and will" requirement to support the issuance of a conditional decree. The Court reversed the Water Court’s ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings to consider only “whether a sufficient amount of the 60,000 acre-feet . . . remains unappropriated to satisfy the application for a conditional decree.”

See the Supreme Court decision