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<br />MR. GEISSINGER: <br /> <br />"Mr. Chairman, first I would like to <br />review briefly for the Board the reasons and <br />where this suggested legislation came from. <br />I think it is real important that we get this <br />in the proper perspective because as your <br />Director has just told you, this very complex <br />problem has been the subject matter of various <br />bills in the Colorado legislature since the <br />early 40's. Something very similar, so I <br />was told by Frank Delaney the other day, was <br />advocated by A. W. McHendrie, one of the <br />deans of water lawyers of the State of COlo- <br />rado, back in the 40's. It's geared in all <br />respects to the constitutional appropriation <br />doctrine. Everything in all of these various <br />bills is tied in with the rule of first in <br />time, first in right, which, by the way, has <br />been followed in most of our neighboring <br />states. Many of those states have what is <br />known as the permit system where the indivi- <br />dual water user goes in before the state <br />engineer and acquires his water right, <br />acquires a certificate and adjudications <br />only take place upon being initiated by the <br />state engineer or a certain number of water <br />users within a district. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />We have the straight adjudication system <br />in this state and have had it since the earli- <br />est days of our statehood, l876. It is a good <br />system. We are too far down along the road <br />at this time to go to a permit system. How- <br />ever, what we have done in this first bill is <br />transfer a lot of the functions that were <br />formerly performed by the courts exclusively <br />to the division engineers and the state. In <br />comment here, we realize what the problem is. <br />There are four or five thousand wells that <br />will have to be adjudicated in one district <br />alone. In our housekeeping bill, which isn't <br />completed yet, we are, and it's indicated in <br />here, setting up a hearing section within the <br />office of the state engineer. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />Now the concept of the division engineer <br />doing these things is more or less like the <br />