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COLORADO state's water projects might not be legally entitled to divert water. The stage was set for a bitter interstate conflict. In 1921, the Colorado River Commission was formed to devise a or the "Colorado Doctrine." Prior appropriation says that whoever first diverts water and puts it to beneficial use has legal claim to that water, regardless of whether it is used near the natural stream course or is carried to more distant uses through ditches, pipelines or tunnels. So useful was this principle of water allocation, that it was written into the state constitution when Colorado was admitted to the Union in 1876. Not long after statehood, the first diversions for irrigation from the Colorado River occurred on the west slope. The Grand River Irrigation Company began the Pioneer Ditch in 1882, followed within a few years by other efforts to serve the fertile Grand Valley surrounding Grand Junction. Other entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to collect snowmelt at the headwaters of the Colorado River and divert it to east slope farmers. The resulting Grand River Ditch carries water for 17 miles to farms on Colorado's eastern plains. Construction of the ditch began in 1894, and it was completed over a 40-year period. Today, this remarkable engineering achievement stands as the only irrigation ditch in Colorado on the National Register of Historic Places. For residents of Colorado, one of the most challenging aspects of water resource development was in securing the funding to build extensive ditch and reservoir systems. Some turned to foreign investment, others looked to the federal government, which by the end of the 19th century became interested in "reclaiming" Western lands and making them productive. With passage of the 1902 Reclamation Act, the U.S. Reclamation Service (the precursor to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the service was an agency within the U.S. Geological Survey) was positioned to play its part in Western water development. Diverting water from the Gunnison River to the Uncompahgre River Valley through the Gunnison Tunnel in west-central Colorado was the Reclamation Service's first project in Colorado. By 1920, growth and drought in the Lower Colorado River Basin states made conflict and competition for the waters of the river inevitable. California's development was well ahead of the other basin states. When the U.S. Supreme Court announced in 1922 that the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation would rule in interstate water conflicts on the Colorado River, the upper basin states panicked. Colorado's officials were concerned that there would be no unappropriated waters available when its own growth and development required construction of water projects. Future projects, they reasoned, would be junior to downstream diversions; in drier years the solution to apportioning the waters of the Colorado River. Chaired by then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the commission featured representatives from each river basin state. Delph Carpenter, Colorado's member, was a Greeley lawyer known as the "silver fox" for his appearance and intellectual cunning. Carpenter's skills as a negotiator made possible the many compromises required to reach a basinwide agreement. Later called by many the "Father of the Colorado River Compact," Carpenter recognized the danger to the upper basin states in using the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation in resolving interstate quarrels. Emulating the Hispanic principle of equitable apportionment, Carpenter fought for equity, not only for Colorado, but for the other states as well. He suggested that the seven upper and lower basin states negotiate a treaty that would divide the waters of the Colorado River roughly equally between the upper and lower basins. Additionally, an interstate treaty requiring congressional approval, he reasoned, would force the federal government to recognize states' rights in water matters, stop the United States from claiming all unappropriated water in the river and preserve waters for use by the slower-growing upper basin states. Ratification of the compact encouraged construction of Bureau of Reclamation projects along the Colorado River. In the upper basin, this federal activity included transmountain diversion. After being studied as early as the 1890s, backers of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project (C-BT) took advantage of a drought and New Deal politics to move ahead during the 1930s. Built and partially funded by the bureau, the C-BT consists of collection reservoirs, which hold snowmelt runoff from the headwaters of the Colorado River, and an impressive array of canals, pipelines, tunnels (one 13 miles long under the Continental Divide and Rocky Mountain National Park) to carry water to the eastern slope to supplement agricultural, municipal and industrial supplies. Serious planning for the C-BT, Colorado's largest transmountain diversion project, prompted west slope residents to form the Western Slope Protective Association (WSPA) to protect their water interests. When state law enabled the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District to organize under the Water Conservancy Act and to pursue construction of the C-BT, the WSPA reacted by reorganizing into the state- authorized Colorado River Water Conservation District (River District). Spearheaded by U.S. THE WHITE HOUSE WAS' _oH June 2s, 1929 Mr. Dolph E. Carpenter Greeley, Colorado My dear Mr. Carpenters Your note of June 25th to Richey with the clipping enclosed, has come to my hand. I am not so much interested in my worries as I am in expressing to you the feeling I have over the consummation of the Colorado River Compact. That compact was your conception and your creation, and it was due to your tenacity and intelligence that it has succeeded. Sometime I want to be able to say this and say it emphatically to the people of the West. Yours faithfully / t? HERBERT HOOVER ACKNOWLEDGES EFFORTS OF COLORADO'S DELPH CARPENTER. Congressman Ed Taylor of Glenwood Springs, chairman of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, west slope residents, led by the River District, successfully argued for "compensatory storage" for Colorado River water that would be removed from the basin. This compensation was provided by construction of Green Mountain Reservoir, which continues to serve as a primary water source for western Colorado. Although the 1922 compact was an example of how cooperative negotiations could successfully address Colorado River issues, it did not 16 GROUNDBREAKING IN 1962 SIGNALS THE BEGINNING OF CONSTRUCTION OF COLORADO'S BLUE MESA RESERVOIR. PARTICIPATING ARE, FROM LEFT, CONGRESSMAN WAYNE ASPINALL, GOVERNOR STEVE MCNICHOLS, SENATOR JOHN CARROLL AND BUREAU OF RECLAMATION COMMISSIONER FLOYD DOMINY.