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

394 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 55
1967, the legislature only grudgingly granted authority to plan and
study water resources, if at all. Colorado was more concerned with
protecting its water for internal development than with telling its cit-
izens how such water should be developed.
The Colorado experience is in sharp contrast with the California
Water Plan and the Central Valley Project in California." Califor-
nia intended to build the state Central Valley Project in the early
1930's but failed only because its effort to sell revenue bonds was
unsuccessful. As a result, California then turned to the federal gov-
ernment for financing.18 The California Water Plan was approved by
vote of the people in its initial stages in 1959 and constructed.1° Vot-
ers rejected a later phase in 1982.20
The difference between the Colorado and California experience
is apparent. California planned to build projects and intended to
raise its own capital. Colorado, on the other hand, granted its state
agencies limited authority to plan and build and intended for some-
one else to put up the capital.
It is no wonder Colorado state water plans were slow in coming.
Those few local entities that could raise the funds built water
projects — Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs"- are examples.
Those without capital turned to the federal government for planning
and financing,22 aided by the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
That was state policy. The federal government was simply another
financer, albeit a big one, within Colorado's entrepreneurial water
system.
B. The Colorado Framework for Water Development
It is almost ritual to recite that the Colorado Constitution
makes the "water of every natural stream . . . the property of the
public" and dedicates it "to the use of the people of the state." The
water may be appropriated and put to beneficial use, with priority of
17. See I. H. Rogers & A. Nichols, WATER FOR CALIFORNIA Chs. II and III (1967).
18. Id. at 42.
19. Id. at 66.
20. WALL ST. J., June 10, 1982, at 24,col. 1.
21. See Metropolitan Water Users Ass'n v. Colo. River Water Cons. Dist., 148 Colo.
173, 365 P.2d 273 (1961); City and County of Denver v. Northern Colo. Water Cons. Dist.,
130 Colo. 375,276 P.2d 992(1954);City and County of Denver v.Sheriff, 105 Colo. 193,96
P.2d 836 (1939).
22. See Colorado River Storage Project, 43 U.S.C. §§ 620-620(o)(1956); Frying Pan-
Arkansas Project, Colorado, 76 Stat. 389 (1962); Colorado Big Thompson Project, 50 Stat.
595 (1937).