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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2. Encouragement and Control of Large-scale
Irrigation Projects.

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The next several decades witnessed a sharp increase in the numbE:r
of large-scale water projects and corresponding adjustments in the
system of adjudicating and administering water rights. Experience
with the actual operation of the Colorado system led the legislature
to make some necessary revisions in the statutory framework, but the
basic structure remained unchanged. Irrigation was by far the major
consumptive water use in the state and the law followed its develop-
ment, although other uses gradually came to be recognized.

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a. Financing and Management.

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In 1909, or thereabouts, the annual increase in the number of
irrigated acres began to decline.138 This trend was no doubt aggra-
vated by the agricultural depression in the 1920s. A large factor,
however, was the growing difficulty of bringing the water to the land.
The river valleys and lowlands were, naturally enough, the targets
of the first irrigation projects; however, these opportunities were
in due course exhausted, forcing new development onto the fertile
but arid bench lands. These projects required greater cap:ital outlay
than their predecessors, and new institutions evolved to make their
construction possible.139

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(1) Ditch Companies.

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Private investment was channeled through large ditch corporations
set up to construct canals and ditches and sell the water to the
farmers. The traditional legislative concern with these companies
was evidenced in a number of acts supplementing the constitutionallll.O
regulation of rates by the county commissioners. Statutes of 1887
and 1893141 required all persons owning or controlling any canal or
ditch used for irrigation purposes to keep enough water in the ditch
during farming season to supply all persons entitled to its use,
within the limits of the ditch priority. Another act outlawed
extortion and under-the-table bargains in the sale of water.142

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(2) Irrigation Districts.

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Another means of financing large projects was launched in 1901
with the first statute authorizing the formation of irrigation
districts.143 These organizations, as reconstituted by later

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