WSP09774

• File Number: 8103.400
• Description: Arkansas River Basin Legislation - Compacts
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 12/14/1948
• Author: Unknown
• Title: Arkansas River Compact - Report and Submission of the Arkansas River Compact - 1948
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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NECESSITY FOR AN ARKANSAS RIVER COMPACT

HISTORICAL DATA

The Arkansas River flows from above Leadville to the Kansas line,
a distance of 320 miles, through Leadville, Salida, Canon City, Florence,
Pueblo, Manzanola, Rocky Ford, La Junta, Las Animas, Lamar and
Holly, and was the site of some of the earliest irrigation developments
in Colorado, The average annual flow, originating in Colorado, without
diversions, is about 1,100,000 acre,feet, Considerable irrigation from
the river has also developed in Western Kansas as far east as Garden
City,

For many years prior to 1901, Kansas claimed that it was being
deprived by Colorado of its rightful share of the river, and in 1901 Kansas
brought suit (206 U.S, 46) against Colorado in the United States Su,
preme Court, asking relief for alleged injury, Decision was rendered in
1907 in favor of Colorado, recognizing the basic principle of equitable
division of the benefits of an interstate stream and holding that as of 1907
Colorado had not extended its right of development or its use of the
water to a point that Kansas had a right of action, but suggested that
later develbpment and use might give Kansas grounds for relief.

In 1910 litigation again developed when the United States Irrigating
Co~ pany, as' owner of several ditches in Western Kansas, sued Colorado
water users in the United States District Court for Colorado in an effort to
establish priorities against Colorado water users, disregarding the State
line. The Colorado water users settled this case by making certain sub-
stantial payments.

Controversy still continued, however, and in 1916, the Finney
County Water Users Association (not a party to the 1910 suit, but a
water user in Kansas) brought suit in the United States District Court for
Colorado against the same Colorado users and for the same purpose as
the 1910 suit, and again a few years later, brought another suit against
the Colorado water users for the same purpose,

Finally, in 1928, the State of Colorado, in order to protect its own
citizens and water users and to put an end to further such suits, took
action in the United States Supreme Court against the State of Kansas
and the Finney County Water Users Association, After many and
e,xtended hearings and the accumulation of an immense mass of evidence,
the United States Supreme Court (320 U.S, 383) on December 6, 1943,
affirmed its previous decision and held that Kansas, up to that time, had
not established any claim for relief and enjoined further private litigation,
but declined to apportion the water of the river or even discuss the divi-
sion of the benefits of John Martin Reservoir, and very strongly suggested
and recommended that the only proper way to determine such contro-
versies was by interstate negotiations under the compact provision of the
Constitution of the United States, Incidentally, an attempt had been made
in 1923 and 1924 to make a compact, but to no avail.

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