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<br />failed to prove sufficient injury, but it also stated that when <br />"diversions from the river in Colorado had so diminished the supply of <br />the stream into Kansas as to do violence to an equitable apportionment <br />to the waters of the streams between the two states. "the Court <br />would rehear the suit. 12 <br />For those who were listening, the 1907 ruling was a watershed <br />event. For Carpenter it was more of an epiphany. In the future, said <br />the Court, no state could claim absolute ownership of water on any of <br />its interstate streams; every state was recognized by the Court as being <br />on equal footing with every other state; and federal agencies were <br />adviseq that they could neither claim control over western state <br />streams, nor dispose of these waters under the rule of prior <br />appropriation.l3 Unless states preferred the expense of litigation, <br />conformance to the Court's ruling would have to be accomplished through <br />interstate compacts or agreements effected by state appointed <br />commissioners "fully acquainted with the facts and surrounding <br />conditions, as well as with future possibilities of use of water from <br />the streams.lIl4 While it was clear that the Court was unwilling to <br />interfere in the Arkansas River conflict on the basis bf introduced <br />evidence, it also refused to settle a squabble between states which <br />followed two distinct water doctrines. <br />When Wyoming brought suit against Colorado in 1911, that <br />distinction did not apply. Both states adjudicated water rights <br />ac~ording to principles of prior appropriation. Since 1908 the Greeley- <br />Poudre Irrigation District had been proceeding with a plan to take up to <br />100,000 acre-feet of water out of the Laramie River basin for delivery <br />into the Cache la Poudre River by way of the Laramie Tunnel. The <br />objective was to develop 125,000 acres of new farmland thirty miles <br />northeast of Greeley. Carpenter was legal counsel for the District. He <br />was also appointed directing counsel for Colorado in the Wyoming suit, <br />in which capacity he presented t......o "briefs and the 1918 argument before <br />the Supreme Court. Overworked and pressured by what might have been a <br />conflict of interest~, Carpenter became extremely ill in Washington and <br /> <br />7 <br />