WSPC02585

• File Number: 8064
• Description: Indian Water Rights
• State: CO
• Basin: San Juan/Dolores
• Water Division: 7
• Date: 3/17/1997
• Author: Todd M Olinger
• Title: Summary of Indian Water 1997
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Session f: Western Water Trends and Directions

Session I: Western Water Trends and Directions

Tribal Water Issues and tfie Changing Policy Landscape
David H. Getches7

Protection and stewardship of tribal resources depends on knowing the
political landscape as well as the natural landscape. Water is a resource
that defies geographic boundaries-reservations, state, or national. Thus,
understanding hydrology and geology-the physical landscape-is essential.
And since water is a public resource subject to private rights, it belongs to
everyone. Everyone has a stake in water decisions. And as public and
private values in water change, so too does the policy landscape. Successful
tribal water management today, of course, means having expertise in the
science of hydrology. Likewise, it means having expertise in water policy.
To care well for water, and to get the fullest benefit from it, requires that
tribal leaders understand what others seek to do with the same resource.
They also need to stay aware of the pressures on public policy affecting
water, The pressures for change have never been greater.

Hydrology has developed and evolved gradually, as science usually does,
building logically as new knowledge accumulates. Water policy, however,
has developed differently. The prior appropriation doctrine in the west
developed in response to economics and social conditions. It was invented to
meet the needs of miners. In the mountains of northern California it was
necessary to take water long distances, to get it from lands that were owned
by the federal government, and have some certainty that no one else would
take it, The prior appropriation doctrine was created to fill the bill. Then
the doctrine was adapted to meet the needs of settlers moving west.
Farmers, as well, found it useful to be able to transport water to lands that
were away from the stream. They needed the certainty that the "first in
time, first in right" rule gave them to secure their investments. All that was
required for a water right was to take the water-to divert it from the
stream.

Sporadic changes were made in the prior appropriation law to accommodate
new circumstances. For instance, there was a need to lock in a water right to
attract the investments needed for dams and canals that took many years to
build before water could actually be diverted from the stream and put to use,

, Raphael J. Moses Professor of Natural Resources Law, University of Colorado School of
Law. Boulder, Colorado.

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