Colorado State Water Plan 1974 (Phase II)

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Introduction developed was located on the St. Charles River near its confluence with the Arkansas River, about 8 miles east of the present city of Pueblo. It was abandoned after a lapse of several years. In 1852, construction was started on the People's Ditch in the San Luis Valley in Colorado on the Rio Grande River. The ditch has been used continuously since completion and has a decreed priority dating to 1852, making it the earliest decreed ditch in Colorado. About this same time several other projects were begun, the largest on the Purgatory River, about 20 miles downstream from Trinidad. While the ditch was not used continuously from the beginning, it is in operation today. Following the gold rush of i 859, a great influx of people, familiar for generations with irrigation in New Mexico, came into Colorado and constructed fairly extensive irrigation works. They were particularly active in the valleys of the Rio Grande and the Purgatory, and to a lesser extent in the South Platte River Basin. The development in southern Colorado was quite extensive with the summer base flows of the Purgatory River being completely appropriated by the year 1864. Virtually all of these appropriations were for irrigation use. Subsequently, larger irrigation systems were constructed on the Rio Grande, South Platte, the Arkansas, and their tributaries. Where possible, these systems have been continually expanded. Around the turn of the century, many of the earlier irrigation systems on the South Platte, which were financed by English companies, went broke. These systems again became profitable when taken over by local irrigators who improved the operations by providing holdover reservoir storage. The irrigation systems in these three basins still furnish the basis for a large part of the State's economic structure. After the Civil War, attention in Colorado and other western states increasingly was focused on the development and use of water resources. This gave rise to legislation and suitable programs, and to mounting water usage for economic development in the form of mining, mineral processing, and irrigated agriculture. Rapid settlement of the West following the turn of the century and enactment of the Reclamation Act of 1902 accelerated irrigation development and gave impetus to hydroelectric power generation. More recently, and particularly since the early 1960's, public opinion together with legislative action and develop- ment programs have resulted in activities and projects for restoring and maintaining water quality and for water use to enhance recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, and to improve the general environment. 1.3