WSP11181

• 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

problem. Water users and their interests
were in a precarious state,

Delph Carpenter sought a better answer, He
wished to avoid further submission to the
courts of questions which could be more
sympathetically weighed by men who knew
irrigation and irrigation needs and methods -
the farmers themselves, their engineers, their
water distribution officials and their legal
advisors. Determined that no more
expensive litigation should be saddled on the
shoulders of Colorado water users and of
western water users generally, if he could
avoid it, Carpenter through constant reading
and study found the answer,

In a decision by Mr, Justice Holmes which
involved western waters, a chance
suggestion had pointed to the settlement of
water quarrels by the states themselves, As
he read and searched he learned that, early
in our nation's history the question of the
exact location of the boundary lines between
some of the original thirteen states had been
settled under a provision of the Constitution
which saves to the states the right to contract
with each other, with the consent of
Congress. He studied the opinions in cases
where boundary questions were considered
by the great lawyers who occupied the
Supreme Court bench during the years when
the nation was forming,

If states can draw a line across lands so as
to fix the limits of each state's ownership,
Carpenter contended, they can just as
certainly draw a line across the flow of a
river. True, different problems are presented
where a western stream of uncertain flow,

4

with torrential cloudbursts and frequent and
prolonged dry spells, Is the subject for
division. But just as surely as men can
measure human rights and are willing to
accept the hardships from low flows while
they claim the benefits from peak flows, the
result can be accomplished. It took years to
induce others to agree with him. But
COlorado's outstanding irrigation lawyer knew
he was right. The insistent, logical,
persuasive arguments of the man with "the
piercing blue eyes, the twinkling blue eyes,
the understanding blue eyes," finally got the
job done.

The legislatures of many states had to be
sold on the idea first. These bodies must
establish river commissions with power to sit
around a treaty-table with representatives
from other states and "equitably allocate" the
benefits flowing from a river. And after the
commissions had been authorized to act by
legislative measures, there came the job of
finding men with sufficient understanding of
irrigation practices and needs, and equipped
with the. ability and courage, to adequately
represent their states,

First, Nebraska and Colorado worked out
their differences over the flow of the South
Platte in a fashion which has proved
satisfactory ever since the Compact was
executed years ago with Delph Carpenter as
Oolorado's commissioner and with Robert H.
Willis acting for Nebraska.

Came the controversy over the water of La
Plata, a little stream rising in the La Plata
Mountains a few miles inside Colorado and
flowing swiftly across the interstate line into