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",. "I . 002593 - 2 - \e Without resorting to imagination we know that the remains of ancient civili- zations contain visual evidence of the extensive use of ground water from sometillles surprisingly deep wells. In modern history, early English law established the princi- pIe that ownership of land included the unqualified ownership of water underlying the land. This theory is generally followed throughout the world today and is CODmon in the United States. It is still universally popular with people who own producing wells. Then came the electric pump. With the advent of a power driven pump, it became quickly apparent that the owner of such a pump could dry up his neighbor's well. In certain areas in the United States the so-called American rule of reasonable use evolved. This rule permitted the landowner to withdraw water from his land, but required such withdrawal to bear some reasonable relationship to the use of water on the overlying land. The application of the principle was never altogether clear and enforcement was almost impossible. An outgrowth of the American rule became known as the doctrine of correlative rights. This rule, developed in California, grants co-equal rights to all owners of land overlying a conunon source of ground water supply. The principal feature of this law is a power granted to the courts to apportion water in times of shortage. The fourth legal principle now applied to ground water is the doctrine of prior appropriation. Throughout the western states extensive irrigation was first carried on by diversion of waters from natural streams. To regulate these surface water di- versions, the western states, almost without exception, adopted the prior appropriation theory - "First in time, first in right". The application of this law to ground water was a natural evolution due generallY to the lack of legislative action on ground water regulation. We find ourselves in that position in Colorado today. Some of our courts in Colorado are actually granting ground water decrees based upon the surface water law, while other courts in ~l1e State refuse to do so. The situation in Colorado is, therefore, fluid.