DELTA – A Colorado water court judge appears likely to let supporters and opponents of a pipeline diversion from Cow Creek into Ridgway Reservoir duke out their claims at a trial scheduled for next year.

As the long-running water rights application inches toward a resolution, Division 4 Water Court Judge Steven L. Schultz signaled at a hearing last week that he was wary of letting a coalition of environmentalists and ranchers stop the project in its tracks.

Schultz repeatedly suggested that what opponents of the project asserted as undisputed facts — including that the project is an engineering non-starter — were in fact contested issues to be sorted out at trial. And he voiced skepticism at their argu- ments that Tri-County Water Conservancy District had distorted the project’s aims over the course of the litigation.

“I have yet to have a case go to trial that is exactly the same as it was [when filed],” Schultz said.

The hearing on the opponents’ motion for summary judgment was likely their final opportunity to defeat the long-running water rights application before a trial currently scheduled for May 2027. Should the case move forward, that trial will begin more than seven years after the application to remake the upper Uncompahgre River watershed was first filed.

As originally envisioned, the project was an attempt to fulfill the Bureau of Reclamation’s midcentury vision of a reservoir in the upper reaches of Cow Creek. Backed by Ouray County, Tri-County and the Ouray County Water Users Association, the application proposed to construct a 25,000 acre-foot reservoir known as Ram’s Horn, which in turn would feed a pipeline from the creek to Ridgway Reservoir.

Ouray County pitched the project as a means of preventing water users along the upper Uncompahgre from being cut off by downstream irrigators in dry years. County Attorney Leo Caselli told the Plaindealer the county has spent over $328,000 on the lawsuit, most of it prior to 2025.

The county, however, backed out of the lead role in the case in 2024, handing the reins over to Tri-County. And counsel for the Montrose-based water utility said it intends to continue pursuing the construction of Ram’s Horn Reservoir through other litigation.

“We expect to build it eventually,” said Sarah Klahn, an attorney for the utility.

As it stands, the pipeline case continues to face stiff opposition from ranchers east of Ridgway and environmental groups. John Cyran, an attorney for Western Resource Advocates, told Schultz that the aims of the project had shifted so drastically from its original intent that Tri-County was effectively advancing a new water rights application.

Cyran argued Tri-County had “disavowed” the engineering work that was the original basis for the proposal, morphing a water storage project into one designed to generate hydropower at the outlet of Ridgway Reservoir.

“Everything here is new since we got a new applicant,” Cyran said.

Attorney Mary Elizabeth Geiger, who represents Sleeping Indian Ranch, likewise argued that Tri-County already has a number of outstanding water rights it’s held for decades and never developed, undermining the project’s purported necessity.

“If you have other water rights that are out there,” Geiger said, “you don’t get to just amass, amass, amass.”

Opponents also repeated allegations that the water rights bid was a rushed attempt to beat the filing of an instream flow water right by the state of Colorado, which would keep water in Cow Creek to preserve fish habitat. But Schultz suggested that line of argument was unlikely to be a winner, calling it “not necessarily illegal or improper” to try to beat the state to the punch.

Lawyers for Tri-County and the Colorado River District – which has thrown its support behind the pipeline project – said Colorado law doesn’t prohibit water rights applications from casting a wide net and then narrowing the scope of their request.

Applicants, said Klahn, routinely “over-claim, and then they tend to cut back.”

Peter Fleming, general counsel for the river district, added that a ruling against the project would mean that applicants “could never refine or reduce the claims that they’ve made.”

“All water projects,” he said, “morph over time.” Schultz told the parties he would begin working on a ruling at the end of the month.

Chart Riggall is a Report for America journalist and corps member focused on covering environmental issues. His work also contributes to the Western Environmental Reporting Collaborative with High Country News and other news outlets across the West. Contact erin@ouraynews. com to make a tax-deductible donation to support his work here for the community.