WSP10526

• File Number: 8210.110.60
• Description: Colorado River Water Users Association
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 12/6/1962
• Author: CRWUA
• Title: Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Annual Report

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present sources of supply, conflicts between the States and the Federal
Government over the control and use of water are growing sharper
and more serious. The problem is a national one, but its threat is
especially grave in the public land States of the semiarid West, where
not only is water even more scarce than elsewhere in our country
but where Federal ownership of millions upon millions of acres of
land give the Federal Government an asserted basis for claiming
proprietorship, 'paramount rights, ' or title in fee simple absolute
to all unappropriated waters in many of our States,

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"Inevitably, such sweeping claims by the Federal Govern-
ment might retard State plans and projects for development of their
own water resources to meet local needs and conditions for their
own citizens in accordance with their own lacal law and custom,
As a result, all of our people everywhere are the losers,

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"Senate Resolution 48 directs the committee to 'make ex-
haustive studies of the extent to which water resources activities
in the United States are related to the national interests,' Clearly,
Federal-State conflicts, if they retard water resource develop-
ment, are 'water resource activities related to the national interest,'

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"The broadening pattern of these conflicts is conclusive
proof of the urgent need for clear-cut, definitive action on the part
of Congress to work out with the States a redefining of Federal-
State powers and responsibilities for control, use, and develop-
ment of water resources, The Federal Government should not
hamstring the States in the States I efforts to develop their water
resources to meet the needs of their people. Neither should the
States hamstring the Federal Government in its efforts to fulfill
its functions within the Constitution, "

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It is most interesting that Congress has seen fit to enact 17 different acts
of general application between 1866 and 1954 recognizing in one way o.r another
the application of State law in governing the use of the water resources in the
public land States, The Western States have relied particularly on the Acts of
1866, 1870 and the Desert Land Act of 1877. Another major piece of legislation
is Section 8 of the Reclamation Act of 1902, which states:

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"Nothing in this Act shall be construed as affecting or
intended to affect or to in any way interfere with the laws of any
State or Territory relating to the control, appropriation, use,
or distribution of water used in irrigation, or any vested right
acquired thereunder and the Secretary of the Interior, in carry-
ing out the provisions of this Act, shall proceed in conformity
with such laws " ,~ ,~ ,~. "

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In general, and to the best of my knowledge, there is not one single instance
in which Congress has enacted legislation, respecting the consumptive use of
water in the Western States, that provided other than that the necessary water
rights should be acquired or established pursuant to State law,

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In the past, we in the Western States have not always presented a united

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