PUB00148

• Year: 1978
• Title: The Colorado Water Study Directions for the Future
• CWCB Section: Administration
• Description: The Colorado Water Study Directions for the Future
• Publications - Doc Type: Historical

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With this in mind, Mr. Bromwell, a lawyer, moved on March 1 to
amend this section by substituting the words "actual use" for "appro-
priation" in the committee's report, which at that time provided that
"[e]xcept for domestic pur20sest priority of appropriation shall give
priority of right. . . .,,8 This amendment was further amended by
Mr. Thatcher to read "appropriation by actual use" and was adopted by
the convention.83 However, this wording was discarded shortly there-
after with the adoption of an amendment by Mr. Pease, which provided
that "[t]he right to divert the unappropriated waters of any natural
stream to beneficial uses shall never be denied. Priority of appro-
priation shall give the better right. . . .,,84 The origin of the
term "beneficial uses" is uncertain, although it may be significant
that Wells and Pease apparently conferred just before this section
was proposed.85 Two weeks earlier, on February 18, Wells had argued
that this section should provide that priority of appropriation shall
give priority of right "as long as the waters so appropriated are
applied to beneficial uses."86 He later cited California practice
in attempting to define the word "appropriation," noting that it was
considered to mean staking out a ditch and commencing work on it.87
Other than this, and the miners' tradition of" requiring all claims
to be improved, there is little history on the intended meaning of
this term.

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c~ Preferences in the Use of Water.

The constitutional provision creating preferences in the use of
water for domestic, agricultural, and manufacturing usest respect-
ively,88 was enacted after a stormy session of the convention in which
a number of different preferences were proposed and rejected. No
other water right provision elicited such a diversity of opinion
among the delegates or differed so significantly in final form from
the initial recommendation of Chairman Plumb's committee.

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The committee report, presented on February 11, provided that
priority of appropriation shall give priority of right, "except from
the first day of June until the first day of September in each and
every year, when lands used for agricultural purposes shall have the
preference. 89 This echoed a territorial statute of 1866 which gave
a preference to agricultural ditches (in Costilla and Conejos coun-
ties) during the farming season.90

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On February 23, the committee of the whole convention released
its report on Plumb's first draft. This amended version gave first
preference to domestic users by exempting them from the priority
rule: Except for domestic purposes, priority of appropriation shall
give priority right, except from the last day of May until the first

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