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<br />Aridity has plQyed a greater role than any other factor in determining <br />the pace and direction of settlement in the Western Uni~ed States. It was, and <br />continues to be, the cause of conflict amongst various interests in intrastate, <br /> <br />interstate, and interbasin relations. In the earliest days of expansion in the <br /> <br />American West these conflicts would often be settled in the various territories <br />by intimidation or force, most often by miners whose operations required a steady <br /> <br />supply of running water. The miners, however, soon realized the efficacy of the <br /> <br />courts as a forum in which to settle their disputes and to guarantee that their <br />water claims would be protected by law. The Act of 1851 and the Possessory Act <br />of 1852 gave miners effective recourse to such guarantees; hardly surprising <br /> <br />considering that they were the main architects of these laws themselves.1 Over <br /> <br />the course of the next fifty yeQrs, however, irrigated agriculture in Colorado <br /> <br /> <br />and many other r~gions of the West overtoolc mining as the primary water consumer. <br /> <br /> <br />The federal government was instrumental in encouraging and financing this irrigation <br /> <br />and the settlement of the West, particularly after Theodore Roosevelt's signing of <br />the Federal Reclamation Act of 1902. Originally intended to encourage the con- <br />version of arid lands into relatively small homesteads,2 the Reclamation Service <br /> <br /> <br />(renamed the Bureau of Reclamation in 1923) soon found itself bringing water to <br /> <br /> <br />increasingly large agricultural projects and building impressive structures such <br /> <br /> <br />as Roosevelt Dam in 1911.3 Due in part to the federal backing of agricultural <br /> <br />and hydroelectric development, the scope of water rights extended beyond the <br /> <br />relatively isolated and local mining disputes. As state interests became more <br /> <br />defined as far as plQns for a comprehensive development of their ,mter resources, <br />