BOARD01250

• Board Meeting Date: 12/9/1964
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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is whether or not this letter should be sent
to the Governor. Now we have not discussed
the details of this letter. Larry, I don't
know if you might want to go into any more
detail. As I understand it, that is what you
would like to have accomplished by the Board
today. Is that correct?"

MR. SPARKS:

"That's correct, Mr. Chairman. The Board
is familiar with the letter.

By statute this Board is charged with the
specific duty of promoting the conservation
of the waters of the State of Colorado. I
want to make one important observation, to
point out one important distinction in the
statutes creating this Board and in our general
water laws. All of the laws and the Constitu-
tion of the State of Colorado having to do
with our water resources use the term 'the
waters of natural streams'. Our adjudication
statutes are built around the constitutional
provision of natural streams. Our Supreme
Court has already recognized that natural
streams are more than the visible surface
flow and arrived at the presumption that
ground waters are presumed to be tributary to
the natural streams.

In the statutes creating this Board and
the water conservancy districts throughout
the State of Colorado, the statutes do not
speak of waters of natural streams. The duties
devolving upon this Board and the water con-
servancy districts specify 'waters of the
State of Colorado', not just waters of the
natural streams, but waters. SOme of you may
know more about the history of those acts than
1 do. Whether this distinction was deliberate
or inadvertent I do not know. 1 presume that
it was deliberate by the people who drafted
the legislation. In any event, the preserva-
tion, protection and development of the waters
of this state are not limited to surface waters.

Another statutory duty of this Board,
specific statutory duty, is to prepare drafts