BOARD01598

• Board Meeting Date: 9/27/1946
• Description: Table of Contents and Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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This memorandum reoite~ the history of the long litigation on the
Laramie Rivev and analyzed the deoisions whioh had been made by the Supreme
Court of the United States. It also reviewed the holdings of the Colorado
Distriot Court and gave the statuS' of the appeal in the Supreme Court of
Colorado. The two oonoluding paragraphs of the memorandum stated.

"To aooomplish suoh an end, it is imperative that the
deoision of the Colorado Supreme Court be held in abeyanoe for
the time being. If the meadowland people are obdurate in their
stand of refusing' to sign a stipulation, then it will probably
be impossible to negotiate effeotively with Wyoming at the
present. Wyoming will await a deoision of the Colorado Supreme
Court with the hope that thereby she will benefit through in-
oreased meadowland diversions and the resulting inoreased return
flows .

"If no stipulation oan be seoured, the Colorado Supreme
Court must be so advised and the oase left to ta~ its natural
oourse. It would seem that in suoh event the attorney general,
without taking any stand as between the diverse Colorado interests,
should with oomplete oandor lay before the Colorado Supreme Court
the interstate aspeots of the entire situation."

Further discussion of the matter by the members of the Board ensued.

It was moved by Mr. Bailey, seoonded by Mr. Smith
and unanimously passed and deolared adopted that it be the
polioy of the Colorado Water Conservation Board not to initiate
any prooeedings in the Supreme Court of the United States in
an endeavov to seoure any modifioation of the deorees, of that
Court in the Wyoming-Colorado litigation over the Laramie River
unleslr . and until there is some ohange in oondi tions whioh makelf
it reasonably oertain that'there is some liklihood of obtaining
a modification of the deorees.

It waif moved by Mr. Bailey, seoonded by'Mr. Dutoher
and unanimously passed that the Attorney General, the Direotov,
and the Attorney for the Board be authorized in the name of
the Board to approaoh the proper offioials in Wyoming to discuss
with them the possibility and means of settling the interstate
oontroversy over the use of the waters of the Laramie River,'
provided, however, that suoh aotion shall not be taken unless
the representatives of the Meadowland appropriators exeoute and
file within the time fixed by the Colorado Supreme Court a
stipulation that further prooeedings by the Colorado Supreme
Court in the case of Benziger v. Water Supply and Storage Company,
et al be held in abeyanoe until July 1, 1941.

It was moved by Mr. Dille, seoonded by Mr. Bannister
and unanimously passed that the Board request the Attorney
General in the event no stipulation is filed to hold in abeyanoe
the oase now pending in the Supreme Court of the State of Colo-
rado entitled Benziger v. Water Supply and Storage Company, et
a1 to present to the Court in that oase a statement of the inter-
state aspeots of suoh litigation and of the possibility of a
deoision in that oase depriving Colorado of the oonsumptive use
of water to whioh it is entitled under the United States Supreme

Court deorees in the Wyoming vs. Colorado litigation over the
Laramie River.