WSP01337

• File Number: 8051
• Description: Area of Origin
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 10/1/1985
• Title: Addressing the Area of Origin Problem - A Research Report Prepared for the Colorado Water Resource Research Institute
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

DRAFT

Edward T. Taylor, as Chairman of the Appro-
priation Committee of the House, was, by
virtue of his position, able to enforce his
edicts and to preclude the development of any
publicly financed project which would divert
water from his congressional district to the
East Slope, unless the proponents of such
project were willing to make such concessions
as he deemed necessary. 56

The position of West Slope interests was further spelled out in

1935 in the so-called "Delaney Resolution."

As summar i zed by

Beise:

This resolution acknowledged that all
sections of Colorado concede to the area
wholly dependent on the Colorado River for
water, a prior right to such water then
available as was reasonably necessary for the
continued growth and development of the
western part of the state; that there was no
legal method whereby one part of the state
could make a binding agreement with another
portion of the state to settle the question;
that, in the absence of comprehensive
surveys, it was reasonable to assume that the
West Slope would ultimately use one-half of
the water allocated to Colorado from the
Colorado River, and, accordingly, to effectu-
ate such assumption every plan for transmoun-
tain diversions should incorporate as an
integral part thereof at its expense compen-
satory storage equal to the amount to
be diverted.57

By this means, the West Slope hoped to effectively assure that it

would mainta in rights to a larger share of the water in the

Colorado River basin and that the costs of building storage for

that water would be borne by East Slope interests.

In 1936 the Bureau of Reclamation completed plans for the

56Beise, "Compensatory Storage," 22 Rocky Mt. L. Rev. 453,
455 (1950).

57Id. at 456.

24