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<br />principle of transmountain diversion once and for all. <br /> <br />Colorado could <br /> <br />take at least some water from the Laramie River and apply it to a <br />beneficial use in the Cache la Poudre River basin. Additionally, the <br />Court had confirmed the correctness of his efforts to secure interstate <br />stream compacts with Kansas, Nebraska and New Mexico. Since 1912 he had <br />been trying to implement the idea of interstate treaties to settle <br />interstate water rights "only to meet skepticism, indifference, failure <br />of comprehension or open ridicule."l~ But he had persisted. Agreements <br />on the South Platte and La Plata rivers were, in fact, less than a year <br />away. What he now hoped was that other Colorado officials would be <br />forced to abandon their insistence on absolute dominion over the state's <br />waters and would support financially the treaty work which Carpenter had <br />been doing as the state's designated Interstate Streams Commissioner.2o <br />Finally, the Wyoming decision clearly established a precedent that would <br />have to apply to the Colorado River. California was agitating for a <br />flood control dam at Boulder Canyon. The upper states, Carpenter wrote, <br />could rest assured that no large work would be constructed on the lower <br />river "whereby a priority of appropriation might later be asserted, <br />until the future development of the upper states shall have been <br />definitely assured." Allocation and apportionment of Colorado River <br />waters, therefore, would have to be accomplished BEFORE construction. <br />This decision "makes my work much easier," he concluded. "In fact, I <br /> <br />feel greatly relieved and my work much lightened . <br />In truth, the major work of his life was about to begin. The <br />Colorado River situation presented him with the challenge of persuading <br />Colorado, the federal government and six other states that the concept <br />of equitable apportionment, implemented through interstate compact, <br />could be adopted successfully to protect everyone's interests. By 1921, <br />the need for some kind of agreement among the seven Colorado River Basin <br />states was indisputable. <br />Immediately following the end of World War I, Utah's Governor <br />Simon Bamberger called a meeting of the seven states to discuss a <br />proposal by the Secretary of the Interior to settle veterans on three <br /> <br />":1 <br /> <br />9 <br />