The rule-making process for groundwater withdrawals in the San Luis Valley got under way Thursday. The monthly sessions, which are expected to produce a draft set of rules by the end of the year, started without a common framework, but State Engineer Dick Wolfe told water users and local officials they could count on seeing an emphasis on sustainability and replacing injurious depletions to senior surface water rights. The rule-making process is one part of an effort to regulate groundwater pumping in the valley where an estimated 6,000 wells are in operation. The other initiative would bring groundwater users into subdistricts, where a combination of assessments and federal conservation funds would be used to pay some members to fallow agricultural ground. The first attempt to get a subdistrict off the ground in the north-central part of the valley remains under court review. "It's very important to note that if folks do not get into one of these subdistricts with a plan of water management or do not have their own plans for augmentation out there, they will be curtailed," he said

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