From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
Woodmoor Water and Sanitation District faces objections from 21 parties in its quest to obtain an exchange decree that could allow it to use water it intends to purchase in the Lower Arkansas Valley. Three of the objections are from ditches where El Paso County water district already has contracted to buy water rights, the High Line, Holbrook and Excelsior ditch systems. The contracts, which total nearly $4 million and would produce about 1,800 acre-feet of water, are with individual owners and not the ditch companies…
Another is from Stonewall Springs Quarry, owned by Colorado Springs developers Mark and Jim Morley, which has since contracted with Woodmoor for a reservoir site…
The water court objections were filed in February, after Woodmoor filed for an exchange decree in December. Woodmoor proposes to move water up the Arkansas River, Fountain Creek and Monument Creek through exchanges, using some reservoirs they do not own or which have not even been built. An exchange allows water to be taken out of priority, with releases from storage that allow other water rights to be served. At the time, Woodmoor did not have any water rights in the Lower Arkansas Valley, and many of the objections submitted to Division 2 Water Court brought up concerns about speculation.
“The application is speculative, and is inconsistent with statutory and case law requirements for appropriative rights of exchange,” attorney Stephen Leonhardt wrote on behalf of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The Southeastern District also is seeking to protect the use of Lake Pueblo and Fryingpan-Arkansas Project water since Woodmoor is outside the district…
All of the large municipal users on the Arkansas River filed objections to the exchange decree. Also objecting was the city of Pueblo, which seeks to protect the Arkansas River flow program established under a 2004 intergovernmental agreement and its own recreational in-channel diversion water right.
The Woodmoor district serves about 3,300 customers north of Colorado Springs, on the El Paso-Douglas county line east of Interstate 25.
More Arkansas Basin coverage here.