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.';" -43- . ;. in their boundaries all irrigation districts, mutual ditch companies, and all irrigation systems which will benefit from the.project.. All water-development projects have benefits which extend materially beyond the direct beneficiaries. The Water Conservancy District Act recognized that all property owners within a water conservancy district benefit from the water development for which the district was created, and provides for the imposing of up to a maximum levy of one and one-half mills on the assessed valuation of all property in the district, this levy being in addition to the direct charges made to the water users for the water received by them from the project. -- In addition to making new water available by the construction and operation of large multiple p~rpose projects, there. is also an opportunity in the state of Colorado to increase the benefit from the water now being used, by making consolidations' of certain ditches and providing that some of the water now being diverted as direct-flow water be regulated by means of some of the multiple. purpose' reservoirs under construction or being proposed for construction. . The people of the state of Colorado in 1879 and 1881 provided through legislative enactment fundamental laws based upon the doctrine of appropriation necessary for the orderly determination and administra- tion of the relative rights to the use of water. Since that time, much legislation having to do with the acquirement, determination, and admin- istration of the water supplies of the State has been enacted by the General Assembly and applied by the state Supreme Court, the result of which is a comprehensive system of irrigation jurisprudence which has. become a model for other states of the West. However, the over-appropria- tion of many western streams under existing laws impels the search for means to increase crop production by the better use of water. The increasing evidence of unequal application of irrigation water with serious crop losses on some land without commensurate benefits to other land, and th3'_many cases of wasteful..L.damaging,. and excessive use of water, indicate's a phase of conservat1.on to which Tc'-o.J:lttIe-a:Hention -has--bee-n- given. The necessity oI~0r8~workable extE;nsrve--priij'ects-mv6lving lar~e expenditures of money, brings to the forefront problems of efficient use. , , It is believed that the appropriation doctrine was eminently suited to the early development of the irrigated region. It stimulated individual initiative' and provided protection to those who bad the fore- sight and stamina to make the first developmentsalcng a stream, 'No doubt the approprioltion system, in permi.tting the free exercise of personal initiative, resulted in a greater development in the major stream basins of Colorado, particularly those on the Eastern Slope, than would have resulted under a planned and regimented development. The system resulted in the development of a greater irrigation afea than the basic water supply will support year after year, a fact which has stimulat- ed the construction of large supplemental water projects, such as the Colorado-Big Thompson project, which might never have been constructed if the development within the basins had originally been made under a controlled system. .