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COLORADO Many of the West's most prominent rivers are born in the mountains of Colorado. The state's most majestic offspring is the mighty Colorado River. Beginning as a trickle from melting snows in the Rocky Mountains near the Continental Divide, the 1,400-mile-long Colorado River snakes its way west and south, becoming the region's life-bringing artery along the way. Since water is one of the West's most limited and valuable resources, Colorado and the six other states that share the river's bounty have had to devise ways to provide for their present and future needs, while developing legal and institutional ways to apportion the water equitably. Although the Colorado River flows through the western part of Colorado, most of the state depends in some way on its waters. Historically, agricultural development and subsequent urban growth along the eastern side of the Continental Divide prompted ambitious dreams of bringing Colorado River water across the mountains to the front range. Yet the Colorado River also defines the west slope's activities and economy. Without the Colorado, fruit and livestock industries along its banks would not exist, and energy resources of oil shale, coal and other mineral wealth stored within mountains of rock might be beyond development. Without it, the dominant recreation and tourism industry of western Colorado would not support world- renowned skiing, rafting and fishing. Competing uses of the Colorado River define much of the political milieu within Colorado and throughout the Colorado River Basin. For nearly 100 years, the state has fought to preserve its claim to the Colorado River, first arguing for all the water originating within its boundaries and later conceding to the principle of equitable apportionment. Both state water law and regional politics have been influenced by Colorado's unique history. In the wake of the 1859 gold rush and the settlement of agricultural colonies on the eastern plains in the 1870s, settlers in the Colorado Territory struggled to develop a dependable water supply in an area with insufficient precipitation to support an agricultural economy. Surface water is often not available when it is needed most. Most of the available water comes from snowmelt runoff, which is plentiful in the spring and early summer but dwindles rapidly by late summer. Early Colorado residents also found the region prone to periods of drought. As Spaniards and Native Americans before them discovered, survival was dependent on constructing ditches and canals to divert water from the natural waterways and building storage reservoirs to capture water during runoff in years when it was plentiful for use in drier times. Allocation of water became a primary concern, as these first diverters worked to develop a system that balanced the dynamics of scarcity and need, cooperation and conflict. Abandoning the riparian water rights system used in the East, which assigns the right to use water to whoever owns the land through which a stream or river passes, settlers in the Colorado Territory turned to legal principles developed by miners in California and Colorado. The mining principle of "first in time is first in right" dictates that whoever first staked a mining claim and worked it had legal title to the claim. Adapted to water allocation, this principle became known as the "Doctrine of Prior Appropriation" SUNSET IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS ENHANCES THE COLORS AND SERENITY OF THE HEADWATERS OF THE COLORADO RIVER. 15