University of Colorado Law Review Volume 55 Issue 3 Spring 1984

• Description: Plans and Studies: The Recent Quest for a Utopia in the Utilization of Colorado's Water Resources
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Other

1984] COLORADO'S WATER RESOURCES 409
trol measures utilized have a reasonable relationship to the eco-
nomic, environmental, energy and public health costs and impacts of
such measures."112 "Economic reasonableness" is the test.118
Notwithstanding the state legislature's caution, the Water
Quality Control Commission, with assistance from the division of
wildlife, has established stream standards114 and in close cooperation
with other state agencies has periodically adopted rules governing
salinity control in the Colorado River.115
So-called section 208 plans have also been promulgated,118 al-
though they may have lost some of their significance because federal
funds for waste water treatment facilities have dramatically de-
clined. The major controversy in Colorado was whether a section 208
plan for counties just west of the Continental Divide could, in effect,
require permits for transmountain diversions into the Denver Metro-
politan Areal"
This is an appropriate place to close the discussion of the state
legislative and administrative regulatory response to the environmen-
tal revolution. In contrast to the federal government's dramatic
swings from federal financing of water projects to the environmental
revolution, Colorado has been as modest asserting its environmental
concerns as it was with state financial support for the development of
water resources before 1970.118
C. State Plans And Studies Of The Seventies
The federal Water Resources Planning Act prompted Colorado,
in cooperation with the Bureau of Reclamation, to commence a
State Water Plan called Water for Tomorrow, which was to appear
in three phases, the first two of which were completed. Phase I, the
Appraisal Report, inventoried land, people and water resources,
listed issues that were then just emerging, such as water quality,
wild and scenic rivers and land use, as well as water supply needs. It
ended by asking, in effect, what policy should be crafted to cope with
all the emerging concerns: should urban growth be curtailed? Should
112. Id. § 25-8-102(5) (1973).
113. Id.
114. 5 COLO. ADMIN. CODE § 1002-08.
115. 5 Id. § 1002-10.
116. 33 U.S.C.S. 1288 (Law Co-op 1980).
117. See Merson & Eastman, Cumulative Impact Assessment of Western Energy De-
velopment: Will It Happen? 51 U. Cow. L. REV. 551, 559 n. 51 (1980).
118. For an expression of a former regional EPA director's frustration at"how proprie-
tary water interests dominate state water policy. . ," see id.