9476

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9476
• Author: Colorado Foundation for Water Education.
• Title: Citizen's Guide to Colorado Water Law.
• USFW Year: 2003.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

Chronology
adopts first statutes for changes of
water rights.
1902 Congress adopts the Reclamation Act
providing federal financing for construc-
tion and operation of water diversion,
storage, and delivery projects to assist
irrigation in the western states.
1903 Colorado General Assembly
extends the system of court decree of
water rights to all beneficial uses, not
just irrigation.
1907 United States Supreme Court in
Kansas v Colorado establishes the law of
interstate equitable apportionment
(states sharing a river system are enti-
tled to a water allocation for their use).
1907 United States Supreme Court in
Winters v United States establishes the
implied federal reserved water rights
doctrine, first made applica~le to
Native American tribal reservations.
1913 Colorado Supreme Court decides
Comstoch v. Ramsay, holding that
"return, waste, and seepage" from
diversion of native water belongs to
that stream system. New water rights
can be created from this water, but
only to the extent that senior rights
will not be injured.
1922 Colorado enters into Colorado River
Compact and La Plata River Compact.
1923 Colorado enters into South Platte
River Compact.
1938 United States Supreme Court in
Hinderlider v La Plata ~ Cherr}~ Creeh
Ditch Co. holds that interstate water
compacts and equitable apportionment
decrees apply to the water rights estab-
lished by the Territories and States
before the compacts and equitable
apportionment decrees were adopted.
1938 Colorado enters into Rio Grande
River Compact.
1942 Colorado enters into Republican
River Compact.
1948 Colorado enters into Upper
Colorado River Compact and Arkansas
River Compact.
1951 Colorado Supreme Court decides
Safraneh v Town of Limon, holding that
all groundwater in Colorado is pre-
sumed to be tributary to a surface
stream and is subject to the prior appro-
priation system, unless the groundwater
is proved to be nontributary by clear
and convincing evidence.
1952 Congress adopts the McCarran
Amendment, allowing the states to
determine the existence, priority,
and quantity of federal and tribal
water rights claims. These claims
may be based on state law or federal
law or both.
1963 Colorado enters into Amended
Costilla Creek Compact.
1964 United States Supreme Court in
Arizona v California determines the
Colorado River Compact allocations of
Arizona, California, and Nevada based
on the Boulder Canyon Project Act.
Court also determines that the federal
reserved water rights doctrine is applica-
ble to other federal reservations, in addi-
tion to tribal reservations. Existence, pri-
ority, and amount of the water reserved
depend on the intent and wording of
Congressional legislation.
1965 Colorado General Assembly adopts
the Groundwater Management Act.
1968 Colorado enters into Animas-La
Plata Project Compact.
1968 Congress adopts Colorado River
Storage Project Act.
1968 Colorado Supreme Court decides
Fellhauer v. People, requiring the State
Engineer to adopt tributary ground-
water regulations.
Increasing population and deve!oprnent puts
additional demands on Colorado's water
resources. Water that flows in the Indian Peaks
Wilderness Area (below) may find it's way to
homes in Denver (above) and the eastern
plains, being used and re-used along the way
for agriculture, wildlife, power generation, indus-
C I T I Z E N S G U I D E T^ C O L^ R A D^ W A T E R LAW ~ 2 9