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 417
changing circumstances. A dramatic overhaul in state water-related
institutions is probably not justified or needed. In fact, given our en-
trepreneurial water system, it may not be desirable. Furthermore,
any change in our appropriation doctrine, which is the heart and soul
of our entrepreneurial system, would require an amendment to Colo-
rado's Constitution and thus would affect and concern almost all our
citizens.
Our state structures are not perfect, but they do work and, as a
result, have redirected policy in recent years, and set the course for
the future.
V. SOME STRENGTHS, SOME WEAKNESSES, AND SOME PROS-
PECTS FOR COLORADO'S WATER RESOURCES
It must by now be apparent that no single plan or study will
show the way for perfectly utilizing Colorado's water resources. The
quest will continue. As new events intrude on the utilization of Colo-
rado water, there will always be some royal melancholy. Should all
this change? Should new, powerful agencies, backed by special taxes
or the state's credit be established? I doubt it. The great possibilities
of the thirties, forties and fifties are behind us. Restraints have been
imposed. Future plans for water development must respond to the
realities of need, coupled with capital, restrained by a separate need
for environmental protection. Colorado will likely benefit in the long
run from such "selective planning." The best planning for the future
can come when specific needs require projects reasonably calculated
to accomplish those needs. Then, special attention can be given by
state or regional agencies to seeing the project through.
The proposal of a super agency appeals to no one. The proposal
of a super plan is almost impossible to achieve. The complexities are
too great, the misunderstandings and rapidly changing circumstances
too likely. It becomes more and more evident that the plans and
studies of the seventies were efforts to catch up with what had al-
ready happened or what was simultaneously happening.
Colorado's plan for its water resources was put in the Constitu-
tion more than one hundred years ago.168 It has evolved by accom-
modating conditional decrees,180 extensive ground water use,'61
transfers, minimum stream flows1ea and substantial injections of fed-
` 159. COLD. CONST., art XIV, §§ 5, 6.
160. See supra note 31.
161. CoLo. REV. STAT. § 37-92-102; §§ 37-90-101 to 141(1973).
162. See supra notes 102-104.