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

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Colorado River Compact symposium
James S. Lochhead
Page 2

This paper will examine the motivation of Colorado to enter
into a compact dividing the waters of the Colorado River
basin among the seven basin states. It will focus on what
Colorado's principal negotiator sought to achieve in the
negotiations of the compact commission, in sessions that
started in washington, D.C. in January of 1922, and
culminated with the signing of the Colorado River Compact at
Bishop's Lodge, Santa Fe, New Mexico, on November 24, 1922.
It will assess whether Colorado's objectives were achieved
in the Compact and subsequent laws that comprise the Law of
the River. It will examine a few of the variables that the
compact negotiators did not, or could not, anticipate.
Finally, it will answer whether Colorado would, with the
benefit of seventy-five years of history following the
Compact agreement, seek anything different from that sought
and achieved in 1922.

WHAT DID COLORADO SEEK IN THE NEGOTIATION OF THE COMPACT?

The state of Colorado, through the efforts of its compact
commissioner Delph Carpenter, was the originator and
strongest advocate of a compact between the Colorado River
basin states. Carpenter had several objectives in mind as
he entered the compact negotiations.

First, Carpenter sought assurance that Colorado could
develop a specified share of the river in perpetuity,
as needs and economic conditions dictate.

Second, and related to the first goal, Carpenter sought
the elimination of the doctrine of prior appropriation
as applied on an interstate basis.

Third, Carpenter was worried about the
authority of the federal government over
allocation in the west. He sought to preserve
autonomy, and the intrastate operation of the
appropriation doctrine free of federal control.

asserted
water
state
prior

Fourth, Carpenter adamantly wanted to avoid interstate
litigation and controversy. He was convinced that
negotiation of a compact would avoid future disruptive
and expensive litigation.

Finally, carpenter knew that if the
states to develop allotted shares of
assured, comprehensive development
reservoirs -- in both the upper and
would follow.

rights of the
the river were
of regulating
lower basins

Each of these objectives is examined in some detail below.
It should be emphasized, however, that there is a wealth of