WSP09325

• File Number: 8543.600
• Description: Closed Basin Division - Studies
• State: CO
• Basin: Rio Grande
• Water Division: 3
• Date: 7/1/1982
• Title: The San Luis Valley Project - Closed Basin Division - Facts and Concepts About the Project
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

The Radosevich and Rutz report, cited extensively above, provides a concis~
summary of the tangle of conflicting interests which confound 'the water
situation in the Valley and also explains the Rio Grande Compact about as
clearly as that complex document can be explained. Those who are interested in
these complicated subjects are referred to that report.

Without intending to oversimplify the San Luis Valley's water situation, it is
not an uncommon sort of problem. A c:dtical resource (water) is available in
limited supply. It is in every individual's interest to secure as much of that
valuable resource as he can for himself. Thus, it follows that it is in no
individual's interest to restrain his demands. The small contribution they can
make will not be noticed or would be consumed by their neighbors in any case.
As every individual maximizes use of the resource, a critical strain is put on
it, often to everyone's loss.

After a long se~ies of dry years near the end of the 19th century, farmers along
the entire length of the Rio Grande Valley found that the river which had ade-
quately met their needs for centuries no longer provided enough water. They
looked north to the river's San Luis valley headwaters. They saw the valley-
wide system of irrigation canals which industrious Colorado pioneers had just
completed. They complained (not without justice). The complaints of the
__ Republic of Mexico were the first to receive attention. In 1896, the Department
of the Interior stopped, granting rights-of-way across Federal lands for the
construction of reservoirs. In 1906, a treaty providing for the delivery of
60,000 acre-feet per year of Rio Grande water to the Republic of Mexico was
signed. A major reason for the 1916 construction of Elephant Butte Reservoir in
New Mexico was so that this commitment could be met.

_ The Federal Government's injunction on right-of-way grants waS a response to a
~ problem with international ramifications which ~ould not be solved very quickly
.~ (if at all) on the local level. The injunction, when combined with threatened
,~lawsuits from downstream water users, hampered, the development of reservoirs
needed to serve the San Luis Valley. In spite of this, the Valley managed to
privately fund and construct five reservoirs between 1910 and 1913 (Rio Grande/
Farmer's Union, Santa Maria, Continental, La Jara, and Terrace, ReservOirs).
During the same general period, eight major irrigation drains were constructed to
reclaim some 90,000 acres of land which were being ruined by becoming waterlogged.
Similar attempts were made to save the east central Valley but this proved
beyond the means of the private sector. Continued diversion of irrigation water
into this area turned much of the soil into adobe and caused alkalai to build up
on the surface. Agriculture in the Valley has moved continually west since
then. Thousands of acres which were once hailed as the best wheatland in
Colorado and perhaps the world, became a barren salt waste.

Discussions between the States of Texas, New Mexico,
of their respective Rio Grande water rights began in
century. A temporary compact was agreed to in 1928.
ratified by the States' legislatures in 1939.

and Colorado on the subject
the early part of the
The formal Compact ,was

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