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

Colorado constitutional provision guaranteeing that "[tJhe right

to divert the unappropriated waters of any natural stream to

beneficial uses shall never be denied"7l precluded the restric-

tions contained in the conservancy district statute. Noting that
such districts are instrumentalities of the state and that their

authority is completely established by, and limited to, the

statute that creates them, the Court stated:

"TO say that the

legislature cannot impose conditions upon this creature of

statute before it could divert water from a natural basin to the

district flies .in the face of well settled principles of consti-
tutional law."72

. In the case of Colorado River Water Conservation District

v. Municipal Subdistrict, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy
District73 the Colorado Supreme Court addressed what a conser-

vancy district must do to comply with the planning requirements

of the protection provision. At issue was the plan submitted by

the Municipal Subdistrict of the Northern Colorado Water Conser-

vancy District in conjunction with its application for a condi-

tional decree for the proposed windy Gap project.

The Court

first held that the project plans for accomplishing the protec-

tion purposes of the statute must. be prepared and submitted to

the water court before a conditional decree may be granted.74

The Court then found the plan that had been submitted to be

7lArticle XVI, Sec. 6, Constitution of Colorado.

72Central Colorado Water Conservancy District v. Colorado
River Water Conservation Board, 186 Colo. 193, 195-l96, 526 P.2d
302, 304 (1974).

73198 Colo. 352, 610 P.2d 81 (1979).

74Id. at 356 and 84.

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