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<br />place them in new Rubbermaid trunks. Some damage was qone, but most of <br />the collection was saved.l <br />Within weeks the Carpenter family began discussing alternate <br />storage plans. Because of Donald's close relationship with the late <br />Dugan Wilkinson, father of the present manager of the Northern Colorado <br />Water Conservancy District (NCWCDl, the family decided to transfer the <br />papers to the NCWCD's Loveland office where I had spent the better part <br />of five years working on Th2 ~ ~~. Simultaneously, the <br />Carpenters agreed to allow me limited use of the documents as a basis <br />tor Delph's biography. Knowing how carefully the papers had been <br />guarded by the tamily and how trequently Donald had been asked to donate <br />them to various agencies, I felt incredibly fortunate. I was on the <br />verge of a Lucy Boomer experience. <br />~aving examined approximately one half of the eighty-five boxes of <br />Carpenter papers, I am now convinced that this collection contains much <br />that is significant to the essence of the West's water history. <br />Additionally, it brings to light the constitutional and legal evolution <br />of Carpenter's principles regarding state sovereignty, interstate water <br />treaties, the role of the federal government, and the relationship <br />between prior appropriation and equitable appor~ionment in water rights <br />adjudication. It also shows how isolated Carpenter felt while he <br />formulated his ideas.4 Similar to Spanish and Mexican concepts of water <br />distribution,S equitable apportionment meant different things to <br />different people. To Carpenter it contained the idea of flexibility, <br />fairness to all interested parties, respect for local needs and <br />conditions, compromise if necessary and avoidance of litigation. It <br />controverted the essence of prior appropriation, focusing instead on <br />preserying the interconnected relationships of water users in entire <br />river basins. <br />Equitable apportionment was not Carpenter's invention, but his <br />insistence on applying this principle to difficult and contentious <br />interstate water problems occurred at a time when most water officials <br />wanted to duke it out in court. What is most illumi-nating historically <br /> <br />3 <br />