WSP07342

• File Number: 8200.300.40
• Description: Colorado River Compact
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 5/19/1997
• Author: James S. Lochhead
• Title: The Perspective of the State of Colorado in 1922 - Did We get What We Bargained For?
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

~\ ..

Colorado River Compact Symposium
James S. Lochhead
Page 12

Carpenter asserted that a similar embargo occurred against
development in the headwaters of the North Platte Basin in
Colorado, after the construction of Pathfinder Reservoir had
been initiated in Wyoming.

As to the issue of legal claims, the United States had
asserted broad authority in the case of Kansas v. Colorado.

Carpenter stated:

. . .the United States intervened in the case urging
that, by the enactment of the [National Reclamation
Act], Congress had adopted a policy of national control
and supervision over interstate streams, which was to
supersede state control, upon a rule 0! priority of
appropriation regardless of state lines.

The United States had asserted a
state proceeding in Colorado, in
water rights to the Grand Valley
users. carpenter summarized:

similar claim in
the adjudication
project by local

an in-
of the
water

Government counsel appeared before the State Court and
insisted that the proposed project would occupy a
preferred position compared with other appropriators;
that the United States and not the states is the source
of title to all water rights; that by the enactment of
the National Reclamation Act congress had, by
implication, set apart and dedicated all of the then
unappropriated waters of western rivers for the primary
purpose of ultimate diversion by canals to be built
under the National Reclamation Act and that all rights
of other appropriators and users must be subordinate to
the preferred right of the Government to divert as much
water as it might see fit und~~ date of the approval of
the National Reclamation Act.

The United
to assert
wyominq v.

States lost the Grand Valley case but continued
plenary federal control in other forums. In
Colorado, the federal government asserted cla~w

to all the unappropriated water in western streams and
rivers. But the Supreme Court found it was not necessary to
address the federal claims. The federal government also
asserted these claims in federal courts, under the theory
that state courts had no jurisdiction over them.

~3C.. 1926.
Id.

24

Id.