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 3

material on the history of the Compact negotiations, not
all, or even a majority, of which was examined in the
preparation of this pape~. The research of others is of
course extremely helpful.
The Riqht to Develop in perpetuity

Carpenter's views on the power and authority of states to
enter into compacts allocating water are summarized in
reports he gave to the Governor of Colorado and the Colorado
legislature. In those reports, carpenter looked to
international law in the settlement of rights to the use of
international rivers. In his view, a lower country could
not subject an upper country to arresting its development
and denying to its inhabitants the use of water. However,
while the upper nation is entitled to make full use of
waters, the countries, as a matter of international comity,
would allocate waters through treaty. Carpenter saw a
compact as the domestic equivalent of an international
treaty.

Carpenter also looked at early U.S. Supreme Court cases, and
studied the constitutional foundation of the 3relationships
between the states and the federal government. He developed
1
As a result of this limited research and the limited scope
of this paper, this paper should not be construed as a
complete outline of the views of the author or the state of
Colorado. primary references were Olson, Ruel Leslie, The

Colorado River Compact, Published by the Author, Cambridge,

Massachusetts, September, 1926 and Hundley, Norris, Water

and the West, University of California Press, Berkeley,

1975.
Historical Memorandum In Re Colorado River, and Brief of
Law of Interstate compacts, June 4, 1921 at hearing on H.R.
6821, Judiciary Committee, Colorado House of Representatives
(referred to herein as the "Historical Memorandum");
Report of Delph E. Carpenter, Commissioner for Colorado, In
Re Colorado River Compact, December 15, 1922 (referred to
herein as the "Carpenter Report' '); Supplemental Report of
Delph E. Carpenter, Commissioner for Colorado, Senate
Journal January 5, 1923, pp. 75-86 (referred to herein as
!he "Supplemental Report' ').
Cases he reviewed included McCUlloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat.

316; Gibbons v. Oqden, 9 Wheat. 1; Texas v. White, 7 Wallace

700; and Collector v. Day, 11 Wallace 113,