University of Colorado Law Review Volume 55 Issue 3 Spring 1984

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1984] COLORADO'S WATER RESOURCES 395 appropriation dictating who has the better right to its use.23 The Colorado doctrine of appropriation is the West's appropriation doc- trine in its purest form.24 Colorado still permits its citizens, agencies and the federal government to obtain decreed water rights by going • to court.26 It allows speculative flood flows to be appropriated.28 It has even struggled to maintain elements of the appropriation doc- trine for non-tributary ground water.27 Colorado has always encouraged and even relied on its citizens to use their own capital and ingenuity to put water to beneficial use.28 Transbasin diversions were permitted.2° Conditional decrees, assuring a developer of water a certain appropriation date if the pro- ject were diligently completed, became a part of Colorado's water law at an early date.S0 Grand plans were not always adequate to initiate an appropriation,S1 and there is ample evidence in the case law to show that Colorado and its water law bar pragmatically ob- tained decrees for each structure that was even somewhat separated from another.82 In the light of Colorado's attitude toward plans and studies and its appropriation system, one must conclude that the pri- mary responsibility for developing water in Colorado for beneficial use was and is placed on individuals, water districts, municipalities, conservancy districts, mutual ditch companies, and a host of other entities. Colorado, through negotiating interstate compacts and litigating in the United States Supreme Court, has always had as its policy to attain for appropriation by its citizens as much of the water that originates and flows through the state as possible. But it left to others, the dreamers, the local citizens who organized a ditch com- pany or conservancy district, any financial risk in the development of 23. COLO. CONST., art. XVI, §§ 5 and 6. 24. See, e.g., Carlson, Report to Governor John A. Love on Certain Colorado Water Law Problems, 50 DEN. L.J. 293, 295 (1973). 25. COLO. REV.STAT. §§37-92-101 to 307(1973);See United States v.District Court, 401 U.S. 520 (1971). 26. See Colo.River Water Cons.Dist.v. Vidler Tunnel Water Co., 197 Colo.414,419, 594 P.2d 566, 569 (1979). 27. COLO. REV. STAT. § 37-90-137(4) (1973);See State v. Southwestern Colo. Water Cons. Dist., 671 P.2d 1294 (Colo. 1983). 28. See Four Counties Water Users Ass'n v. Colo. River Water Cons. Dist., 159 Colo. 499,414 P.2d 469 (1966);Moses,Early Colorado Water Rights,THE DENVER WESTERNER'S ROUNDUP, March-April 1983. 29. Coffin v. Left Hand Ditch Co., 6 Colo. 443 (1882). 30. 1919 Colo. Sess. Laws 492. 31. See Petition of Northern Colo. Water Cons. Dist., 130 Colo. at 400-08. 32. Id.