My WebLink
|
Help
|
About
|
Sign Out
Home
Browse
Search
9367 (2)
CWCB
>
UCREFRP
>
Public
>
9367 (2)
Metadata
Thumbnails
Annotations
Entry Properties
Last modified
7/14/2009 5:02:35 PM
Creation date
5/22/2009 5:44:48 PM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
UCREFRP
UCREFRP Catalog Number
9367
Author
Colorado Water Workshop.
Title
Proceedings
USFW Year
1992.
USFW - Doc Type
Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
Copyright Material
NO
There are no annotations on this page.
Document management portal powered by Laserfiche WebLink 9 © 1998-2015
Laserfiche.
All rights reserved.
/
196
PDF
Print
Pages to print
Enter page numbers and/or page ranges separated by commas. For example, 1,3,5-12.
After downloading, print the document using a PDF reader (e.g. Adobe Reader).
Show annotations
View images
View plain text
<br />Interstate Compacts: Colorado's Guarantee For the Future <br /> <br />Anthony W. Williams <br />Attorney, Williams, Turner & Holmes, PC <br /> <br />I was pretty nervous coming to Gunnison this morning knowing that <br />I was to follow John Carlson, Jim Lochhead and Lori Potter, and I did <br />not know what they were going to say. I have heard that repetition <br />is the father of memory, and you are about to receive a birth of <br />memory today. Certainly, by the time you leave here, some facts will <br />have been addressed several times. <br />The question before us at this time in the conference, is whether <br />or not interstate compacts are alive and well. Are they viable as <br />protected measures for Colorado water? Since we are discussing a <br />Showdown on the Colorado River we are concentrating on the Colorado <br />River Compact. <br />There are only two methods that I know of for dealing with <br />controversies between the states. <br />One of these is an agreement between the states that is called <br />a compact. John referred to the fact that compacts are recognized by <br />the United States Constitution, which contains the caveat that there <br />will be no compacts without the consent of Congress. Colorado has 9 <br />compacts. That maybe a record; I am not sure. Our large number of <br />compacts might be anticipated because we have major rivers flowing out <br />each of our boundaries. <br />I The second way of dealing with interstate controversies is to <br />file an Original Action in the Supreme Court of the United States. <br />For example, when you hear someone refer to the cases of Kansas <br />against Colorado, or Wyoming against Colorado, those were cases that <br />were filed in the Supreme Court by one state to sue another. Colorado <br />has been in four of those cases. The first case was Kansas against <br />Colorado. That was decided in 1907. John talked earlier about <br />equitable apportionment which began to evolve in that case. The next <br />case that Colorado was involved in was with Wyoming and the third case <br />was Texas and New Mexico against Colorado. With the last case we have <br />come full circle, and we are back to Kansas against Colorado. This <br />one is still going, as you undoubtedly know. This short reference to <br />available procedures is of value for the purpose of this talk solely <br />to indicate that the methods of dealing with controversies between <br />states are limited. <br />The Compact recognizes the right of the seven states involved to <br />develop water at their own pace. It divided, between the Upper and <br />Lower Basin, the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of the waters <br />that were allocated to it, and the quantities were guaranteed in. <br />perpetuity. Those words are not my own, they are Compact words. <br />"Exclusive beneficial consumptive use" and "perpetuity" are words that <br />have plain meaning. Plain meaning is very forceful in interpreting <br />any statute. <br />I think Lori is the first one to mention the question of whether <br />Congress can change the Compact by a majority vote at any time. That <br />is a debated subject and probably if you counted votes, you would find <br />more that support the view that Congress can change a Compact. <br /> <br />24 <br />
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.