WSP13022

• File Number: 8044
• Description: Interstate Compacts
• Date: 1/1/2002
• Author: Water Information Program/David Robbins
• Title: Interstate Compact Obligations: Impacts on Colorado Water Supply, speech exerpt from Gunnison Water Workshop
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

Intercltate CO'!JPact OhligationJ
Continueo Prom Page One

...the Colorado Doctrine of Prior
Appropriation, the constitutional right
that vests in each citizen of this state the
right to appropriate and put water to
beneficial use if it is available, operates
ONLY against the quantity of water that
is allocated to this state by the c

United States, most in the West, but not only in the West.
There are also compacts on several rivers in the East. Water
compacts have, in the West, one thing in common: they
are designed to allocate consumption. It doesn't matter
how the compact goes about doing it. When you strip
away all of the gloss, they are allocating consumption. They
do it in a variety of ways. They do it by effectively limiting
future water development. The Arkansas River Compact
was designed to do that. Or, they seek to set in place a
given amount of consumption for a given basin or for a
given state. The Rio Grande Compact, the South Platte
Compact and the Colorado River
Compact do that. People think of the
Colorado River Compact in terms of
flow in the river, but that is not really
what the compact allocates - the
compact allocates a right to consume a
portion of that flow.

The other principle I want you to be
clear about at the outset is that the Colorado Doctrine of
Prior Appropriation, the constitutional right that vests in
each citizen of this state the right to appropriate and put
water to beneficial use if it is available, operates ONLY
against the water that is allocated to this state by a compact.
That is a very important principle.

On the La Plata River, there was disagreement over 50
years ago whether the state could require La Plata River
irrigators with priority dates senior to the La Plata River
Compact to shut off, since they had a constitutionally
recognized property right. The U.S. Supreme Court, in
the case ofHinderlider v. La Plata and Cherry Creek Ditch,
enunciated the rule that is good today: Colorado's Doctrine
of Prior Appropriation ONLY operates against that portion
of the La Plata or any other river in the state that is
apportioned to the State of Colorado. In the case of the

La Plata, the rest of the flow of the river belonged to New
Mexico; it wasn't ours. By agreeing to a compact, we had
in effect acknowledged sovereign control over a portion of
the river to another state. It is the same with every compact.
When you say, "There is more water; we should be able to
use it," remember that it is not ours even to talk about. It
may flow through our state, but it does not belong to us.
We have a legal obligation to deliver it to our neighbor.

Finally, I want to make it clear that compacts drive river
operations. Water must be delivered downstream in the
amounts that the compact
contemplates and in the
time frames that the
compact contemplates.
We are different than
California, at least as to
rivers which arise in
California and flow to the
, I. ocean. California does
not ave a compact wit t e ocean. On rivers which arise
in California, California is free to undertake conservation
measures, free to undertake reuse programs and free to
continue to increase the amount of water that it uses in its
rivers and streams through all these mechanisms. Colorado
is not. Colorado, on each of our rivers, is obligated to
deliver a significant quantity of water downstream and one
person's conservation, reuse and expanded use, requires
another person to forego use of the resource. In the end,
at the state line gages, the quantity of water that has been
delivered historically must continue to be delivered, and
this makes the lives of all of the people attempting to
manage water resources very complicated.

I have been asked to talk specifically about the Rio Grande
and South Platte River Compacts.
Continued in Next Issue

F eoeral Reclerve Water Rightcl Upoate

The Technical Committee of the USFS Reserved Water Rights Settlement Negotiations
continues to meet and discuss each stream. The Committee has representatives frOlTI the
water users, Division of Water Resources and USFS. The Committee has reviewed each
stream in southwest Colorado at least twice and has developed preliminary concepts for
resolving over 900/0 of the streams. The Committee is now focusing on the streams
which have been more difficult to develop a conceptual plan for resolution. Please contact
Steve Harris [phone] for technical questions or Janice Sheftel [phone] for
legal questions.