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Interstate and Federal Law <br />Millions of people depend on state, federal and <br />international law to allocate and protect the <br />v,~ater resources that begin therrjourney to the <br />sea in Colorado. Eighteen states and Mexico <br />depend cn water from Colorado. Water from <br />the headwaters of the Colorado River in Rocky <br />!btountain Nationol Park (above) may make its <br />v,~ay to the Sea of Cortez (below) in Mexico or <br />a dinner table rn Los Angeles. <br />Federal Reserved 1Nater Rights <br />In 1907, the Supreme Court in Winters <br />u United States determined that the states <br />could not deprive Native Americans of the <br />water reserved for them by implication <br />when Congress created tribal reservations. <br />This generated the concept of federal <br />reserved water rights, created expressly or <br />by implication. <br />Implied federal reserved rights refer to <br />water that was unappropriated on the date <br />the reservation was created, in the mini- <br />mum amount necessary to achieve the pri- <br />mary purposes of the reservation. The pri- <br />ority date of this type of reserved water <br />right is the date the reservation was created. <br />Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court <br />and various state supreme courts have <br />upheld implied federal reserved rights for <br />numerous national parks, monuments, <br />and other federal reservations created <br />through acts of Congress. <br />Federal reserved water rights may also <br />be created expressly, for example, by the <br />Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. <br />As a result of this legal precedent, and to <br />allay western concerns about exclusive fed- <br />eral control over tribal and federal water <br />claims, Congress adopted the 1952 <br />McCarran Amendment. This amendment <br />permitted state courts to adjudicate federal <br />and tribal water claims. These included <br />express and implied federal resen~ed water <br />rights, and federal claims to state law-based <br />water rights. Since then, Colorado has adju- <br />dicated federal and tribal reserved rights <br />claims, and the state administers them in <br />priority, along with state-based water rights. <br />For example, Rocky Mountain <br />National Park and the Cache La Poudre <br />2 4 C^ L^ R A D^ F^ U N D A T I ^ N F^ R W A T E R E D U C A T I O N <br />A brief summer rain falls on the Pawnee National Grasslands. The eastern prairie receives an <br />average of approximately 12 inches of annual precipitation, while parts of the mountains may <br />receive more than ?0 inches. Denver avervges approximately 14 inches of precipitation a year: <br />