BOARD00198

• Board Meeting Date: 1/15/1969
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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permit system in other states but, in the
final analysis here, we are going to stay
with the courts for the adjudication of our
water rights so that there can be no charges
from any quarters that the state engineer or
the division engineer has been arbitrary and
capricious in his action or that he is a
czar. Once these proceedings are completed,
the decrees of those courts will be his warrant
of authority to administer the water rights in
much the same manner as we have it today. The
problem is bringing these wells into the
system.

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Starting with these engineering reports,
there were preliminary reports furnished to
the legislature during its last session. As
far as the Arkansas was concerned, there were
no final reports. On the Platte we only
studied two districts, one and sixty-four.
I think that the staff of the Water Board,
if I recall correctly, has completed the
studies on two but they were too busy and it
was too voluminous to get the work out. In
any event, they weren't completed and we had
to have more than two districts covered on
the Platte. Obviously, and all of the engi-
neers are in accord on this, both those within
the state and the professional firm of Clyde
and Criddle employed on one of these studies
from the State of utah, but the point that
I desire to make is that they all felt that
we had to go to a basin concept. We had to
administer these waters, the total supply,
within the basin. I am sure this is also the
view of the United States Geological Survey,
the Bureau of Reclamation, and any and all
others. In other words, you only have so much
water to satisfy these rights, water rights
don't make water, so you have got to figure
what is this total supply. Of course, that
was the principal engineering job that had to
be completed on the Platte and the Arkansas.

I met with the engineers from a half day
to a full day for about, well, beginning in