Laserfiche WebLink
<br />2 <br /> <br />dispuies over interstate streams became a focus of national attention and <br /> <br />litigation. In tIle 1920's the scope of interests enlarged to the point where <br />the Colorado River Compact was siyned to give certain rights of the Colorado to <br />the Upper and Lower Colorado River basins. Tllis was the central compact whose <br /> <br />provisions were the only real interstate guide to dividing the Colorado; that is, <br /> <br />until 1946 when the Upper Division states came together .and formed the Upper <br />Colorado River Basin Compact Commission to form a new compact. The records of <br /> <br />the proceedings of this commission exist in two volumes and an engineering report. <br /> <br />The record of Meeting Five, held in 1947, will be examined here in some detail, <br />as it reveals many issues relating to how and why the Colorado delegation to the <br />Commission played the role of leader in many respects, and how this leadership <br />affected the finished Upper Basin Compact of 1948. To understand Colorado's <br />role in the Commission also requires an examination of Colorado's history of \;ater <br />development and of its compacts and conflicts with other states, particularly \lith <br />Wyoming, prior to 1948. <br /> <br />In Rivers of Empire, Donald Worster explains the increase and intensification <br /> <br />of economic development of western American rivers in three stages. The first is <br /> <br />the period of incipience, which began with the Mormon settlement in Utah around <br />1847.4 The Mormons were "the first Americans of northern European ancestry,,5 to <br /> <br />practice irrigation on a wide scale, increasing their irrigated acreage in Utah <br />by approximately sixteen times between 1850 and 1890.6 According to Worster, this <br />incipient period in the West was characterized mostly by individual and family <br />diversions of streams. Water was diverted and used on the relatively small scale <br /> <br />such as that of California and Colorado miners; little water development was under- <br /> <br />taken by corporations or the federal government in the West. <br />1902 was pivotal in western water development as the year of Teddy Roosevelt's <br /> <br />signing of the Reclamation Act. This brought aoout the second stage, the "era of <br />