BOARD02386 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

I the results of the Eagle county case. You recall that last year a decision was rendered by the United States Supreme Court which, in effect, directed the federal government to comply with the state law concerning water rights. Most of the attorneys in the state hailed that as a great victory. I thought that it was the worst thing that ever happened to Colorado, but mine is a minority view in connection with the great triumph it presumably represented. What bothered me then, and what still bothers me, is the fact that we pushed the federal government into ,.a corner. In all our water supply studies on the Colorado River, or any other river, we have never allocated any amount of water to the federal government other than what we knew they were cur- rently using, and that was a relatively small amount of water. In the Blue River case the fed- eral gove~nment did secure water rights on the Blue River for the Colorado Big Thompson project. There was a stipulated agreement that those fed- eral, water rights would be accorded a priority in conformity with state water law. I Some years ago, when I came in here as director of the board, we tried to work out some informal arrangement with the federal agencies to the effect that they would allow the state, or the water conservancy districts, to file on their own water rights - to keep the federal government out of it. To the best of my knowledge, the federal government has never made any attempt since the Blue River case to go into the federal court and assert a claim to water rights in Colorado. On this informal working basis, we have been getting along very well. However, the Eagle County case changed all of that. This case now forces the United States to come in and claim water for federal purposes, and to estimate their long-term needs and to get a water right accord- ing to the state priority system. On the face of it, this appears to be reasonable. The prob- lem is we really opened up Pandora's box. Now -75-,