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Last modified
1/26/2010 3:16:27 PM
Creation date
10/12/2006 4:46:40 AM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Water Supply Protection
File Number
8200.300.40
Description
Colorado River Compact
Basin
Colorado Mainstem
Date
9/1/1991
Author
CSU
Title
Delph Carpenter - Father of Colorado River Treaties - Text of Gov. Ralph L. Carr's 1943 Salute to Delph Carpenter
Water Supply Pro - Doc Type
Publication
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<br /> <br />when the water users in one state <br />complained of violations of their rights by the <br />combined diversions of the water users in <br />adjoining states. The lower states argued <br />that the irrigators in states on the upper <br />reaches of a given stream were diverting so <br />much of the flow that crops on the lower river <br />were being deprived of their needed water <br />supply. In at least two instances international <br />situations were involved in such lower river <br />protests. <br /> <br />The water users in upper states where, the <br />river-flow develops from the rains and melting <br />snows which fall in their mountains, were <br />quick to assert a claim to all the water flowing <br />within their borders for that very reason. <br />There was no tribunal which offered a forum <br />for the settlement of such controversies <br />between individual water users on the same <br />river but residing in different states. The <br />states as the representatives of their <br />respective citizens and sections went to the <br />United States Supreme Court and sought <br />redress for the asserted wrongs. <br /> <br />To present a case which involves an <br />interstate dispute over the benefits from the <br />flow of a river crossing the borders of half a <br />dozen states, calls for the preparation and <br />presentation of facts and of law on a colossal <br />scale. Hundreds of thousands of dollars <br />have been expended by the farmers on <br />certain streams il} an attempt to protect and <br />preserve what they assert are their rights. <br />One case - that one between the states of <br />Kansas and Colorado which involves the <br />water of the Arkansas River throughout its <br />course in Colorado and across about 75 <br />miles of irrigated lands in western Kansas - <br /> <br />has been in the United States Supreme Court <br />with only a few periods of seething peace <br />since 1901, The Colorado River with seven <br />states, has furnished that highest Court food <br />for thought on several occasions already. <br /> <br />The states, in their capacities as quasi- <br />sovereignties might have had to resort to <br />arms to settle these difficult problems, Men <br />and states have gone to war over situations <br />not half as vexing or as important as those <br />involving the flows of western rivers. The <br />enjoyment of a thing the presence of which <br />spells life and growth and permanence; and <br />the absence of which means decadence and <br />defeat and death can easily be converted into <br />a casus belli. Fortunately for this country, the <br />states surrendered the right to wage war <br />when they adopted the constitution. <br /> <br />Engaged in the practice of law in the city to <br />which Horace Greeley had sent the Union <br />Colony, Delph Carpenter caught the vision of <br />the great Editor. Greeley had insisted and <br />argued and demanded that more and ever <br />more water be diverted and applied to the <br />fertile soil of what is now classed as the fifth <br />county in the country in agricultural <br />importance. Delph Carpenter became an <br />irrigation authority early in his practice, and <br />his efforts and advice went far in <br />accomplishing the results which Greeley had <br />foreseen. Eventually he became Colorado's <br />legal representative in the vital river cases <br />and the water conferences which were <br />ahead. But there remained to be applied the <br />underlying law by which states might <br />measure their relative rights to water, Resort <br />to the Courts had proved unsatisfactory. The <br />states themselves had not sensed the <br /> <br />3 <br />
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