WSP04958

• File Number: 8200.300.40
• Description: Colorado River Compact
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 8/1/1997
• Author: Daniel Tyler
• Title: Delpheus Emory Carpenter and the Colorado River Compact of 1922
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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Arkansas, La Plata and Laramie rivers. In subsequent years he participated in
compact discussions on the North Platte, Little Snake and Rio Grande rivers.
Carpenter's qualifications for the post .of interstate streams
commissioner date from a 1912 association with Royce J. Tipton, a civil
engineer who was at that time preparing maps, surveys and hydrologic studies
of the San Luis Valley in connection with New Mexico's claim to prior
appropriation on the La Plata and Rio Grande rivers. I In that year, Carpenter
wrote to Senator Carl Hayden of Arizona, suggesting "the settlement of
interstate water controversies by the exercise of the treaty making powers of
the states."2 Having been selected in 1911 as directing counsel for Colorado in
Wyoming v. ili.QradQ (259 U.S. 4 I 9 [1922]), Carpenter had begun to search
for a settlement with Wyoming that would produce a negotiated agreement
without litigation. Although he still hoped to prove that Colorado had an
absolute property right to the water originating within its bord,ers, Carpenter
began formulating an interstate compact theory as he prepared his briefs for
the United States Supreme Court.3 He was opposed to interstate litigation.
Negotiation among equals, he believed, would be far more productive,
durable and cost effective.
Elected Colorado's first native-born state senator in 1908, Carpenter
also developed the political instincts which served him so well in the
negotiation process. A Weld County rancher and attorney with considerable
experience in irrigation litigation, he understood the complexities of water use
and delivery, the business end of water development and the intricacies of the
prior appropriation doctrine. Recognized in 1911 as the "accredited
Republican leader of the senate,,4 and a major force on the committee on
agriculture and irrigation, he was asked by the Democratic leadership to chair
a special committee on irrigation investigations, "particularly in relation to