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.. man by the name of William Hammond Hall. California's first state engineer back in 1901. He said. referring to this system of developing law through litigation. "The system is wrong; it is wrong in principle as well as faulty in procedure. Leaving the ownership of streams to be fought over in the COW1S, and titles to water to be established in ordinary suits at law has never resulted in the creation of satisfactory conditions and never will. Each decision. instead of being a step toward final settlement. too often creates new issues which in turn have to be litigated." I would interject at this point that I think what California had at that point was a system in the courts that was very flexible and could meet new situations. Nevertheless, Mr. Hall was critical of the system. He went on to say, "Irrigators cannot live in peace. Litigation and controversy are forced upon them.. There never was a time when doubtful or controverted policies should have been evaded by the lawmakers and thrust upon the COW1S for settlemenL There is as great a need for specially qualified officers to determine the amount of water supplied and regulate its distribution as there is to smvey the public land. There is as great. if not greater, need of a bureau to supervise the establishment of titles to water as there is for land officers to manage the disposal of public land." The California legislature did not listen to Hall and adopted the appropriation doctrine, which is common all over the West and proved to J>e a workable system. As you are all aware, in the early 1900s there was tremendous agricultural development in California despite what Hall referred to as the messy lawsuits. One of the criticisms of our court-centered system has been that the "public interest" is not adequately represented in water issues. My response to that would be that all you have to do is look at a couple of the major cases of the last 20 years. The federal reserved water rights cases back in the '80s for example, or the A WDI case, to see just how many and how varied the interests were that were represented. I'm talking across-the-board water interests in the community. There is that opportunity through this process for a very wide representation and presentation of points of view. Another thing that the courts have been able to address, I think somewhat spontaneously, has been the revegetation issue down on the Rocky Ford Ditch and on the Colorado Canal. Maybe it hasn't been 100% successful, but I think it has been significantly successful. This is an instance where the court was able to fashion some kind of a response to the community call for addressing environmental concerns as well as other agricultural interests to keep down dust and noxious weeds and so forth. It did provide that opportunity, and the COW1S were able to respond. And of course, the most persistent criticism of the Colorado water law system is that it is too costly, too time-conswning, inefficient. too many lawyers, too many engineers, and there is no doubt that Colorado is notorious around the country. Why are so many people willing to pay the price? I think it is simple enough -- that water is valuable. h is without any question the most valuable resource in this state and this litigation system reflects that value of water. The decisions that result are the outcome of very well supported evidence that has been presented, opportunities for many divergent interests to be presented and the best legal reasoning that can be presented or generated. There is an old saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly, but very finely. I think that has happened in the water area. I think the grinding has been frustrating, it has taken a long time and there has been a lot of criticism of it. it has been expensive, but it has ground pretty doggoned finely. I think we have a good system, and I would encourage you not to support any kind of dramatic change of the system without looking at it very carefully. I think the COW1S have been effective, I think the COW1S have been responsive. I think competing interests have been balanced. and there has been a reasonable degree of certainty and stability provided in the process, yet. there has been flexibility. I would say that there are several guiding principles that have grown up in the COW1S or that had been confirmed by the court in our process that have to remain part of our water law system. One, the appropriation doctrine. No question about t:hal-, Another one would be the doctrine of maximum utilization. Another would be the protection against injury. Another would be certainty of rights yet with a degree of flexibility to meet changing conditions. I think that our COW1S have provided those foundations, have followed and have very strong biases in favor of those principles which should be maintained. I disagree strenuously with the contention that our water laws and institutions have been out-paced by the complexity of the issues they were designed to address. I disagree and I say I hope you will always encourage sticking to what we have, which is a pretty fine system for water law developmenL It works. Arkansas River Basin Water Forum 17 itA River of Dreams and Realities"