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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B. Administration and Regulation of Water Rights.

The Constitutional Convention established a framework of general
declarations of rights to the use of water. In doing so, it addressed
the basic conflicts of that period at an organic level, reflecting
the unique natural qualities of the land and formally departing from
the tradition of the common law.

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One of the forces which contributed to the evolution of the
Colorado doctrine was the need to encourage investment in water
diversion projects. In 1876, however, Colorado was already entering
a new era in the use and development of water. The problems engendered
by large-scale water projects were beginning to be felt and grand
declarations of rights meant little to the farmers in Greeley who,
back in 1874, had clamored for some practical system for protecting
their rights.

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Formulation of the "Colorado System."

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a. The 1879 Act.

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Agricultural use of water was increasing at a rapid pace, along
with the population and economic development of the state as a whole.
In 1860, there had been roughly 35,000 acres in irrigation.122 By
1876, that figure was increasing at the rate of approximately 60,000
acres per year.123 Enterprising immigrants to the state, such as the
Union Colony at Greeley, were accumulating capital and constructing
larger and larger canals to bring water to the parched valleys of
the South Platte basin.

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On the Poudre in the spring of 1878 Benjamin Eaton began con-
struction on the Larimer and Weld canal.i24 This was the largest of
any of the existing ditches in the valley and the farmers in both
Greeley and Fort Collins feared that they would lose their water to
this upstream behemoth. In October, 1878, a meeting was called in
Greeley by a pair of freshman legislators from that vicinity to dis-
cuss possible action by the General Assembly.

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A number of irrigators from the Poudre and St. Vrain valleys
attended this meeting and agreed that a system of administering
their constitutional rights of prior appropriation was needed. They
recommended (1) the creation of an administrative officer to superin-
tend the distribution of water, (2) the formation of water districts
conforming to the boundaries of stream valleys, (3) provision for the
measurement of streams, and (4) definition of what was meant in the
constitutional provision concerning priority of appropriation.12s

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