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Control facilities in Denver Reuse Plant. Photo courtesy of Denver Water Board. Municipal Ownership of Water In Colorado, most domestic water utiltties are municipally- owned. As discussed, such municipal water utilities are not sUbject to regulation by the Colorado PUblic Utilities Commis- sion. Another facet of municipal water ownership of water is that, contrary to the law of contract carriage for agricultural users who are the true owners of the water rights, the customers of a domestic utility are not the true owners. In a transfer case, the customers of a municipal utiltty are never made parties. Nor do such customers have to be consulled with respect to the acquisttion or disposttion of the water rights of the utiltty. The universal custom In Colorado is that a purely domestic water utility is the owner of the water rights and may deal wtth them without consulting the ultimate users. This is a necessary rule for practical reasons. Taking the ~ost extreme example, when the City and County of Denver IS a party to water litigation, the million people who receive that water could not, in any practical sense, become parties to the litigation. Nor could anyone of those or even a combination of those who are users decide to t~ke a portion of the water supply and divert it through their own facilnies as can be done by agricullural users if they choose. The domes- tic wll:ter ~~i1ity .is related to tts users in the same way as an electnc utility wtthout regard to the law governing the exercise of water rights. Water Quality Water law has developed to the point where now it is much more than a question of putting water to use from natural streams or underground aquifers, and has entered into the law of water quality and the character of retum flows. It is no longer enough to have a water supply. When a developer pl~ns to ~r~ate more housing, more manufacturing, or more office facIlities, water for these enterprises must be disposed of so as not to impair the quality of the waters into which the return flows are inserted. Consequently, the field of water law has now become a field of environmental law in which the legal adviser must contemplate not only securing a supply but the disposal ofthat supply in a safe and economical manner. Colorado water law is a complete deviation from the old English common law, which required natural streams to be allowed to flow undiminished in quantny. Necesstty in this arid region created a new common law encouraging the removal of water from streams to meet the needs of a civilized society. But the law continues to follow that part of the old English , common law, which required natural streams to be left unimpaired in qllality. In what Is known as the Chain O'Mines case (Wilmore~. Chain O'Mines, 96 Colo. 319, 44 P.2d 1024 (1934)). tailingtl from mill operations were emptying into Clear Oreek Cai;lyon above agricullurallands irrigated by this water. :mese t~i1ings were filtering out when the water was applieQtothe lapd so that in a field of corn which was a quarter mile In length ~Iong the distribution system, the first corn would be a foot high while the corn althe end ofthe row would be five or six feet tall. In a sutt to enjoin the miners, District Judge Charles C. Sackmann In the Denver District Court held that a .reasonable amount of pollution had to be permitted because both 1he miners and the agriculturalists had to be accommodated. The Supreme Court reversed in the Chain O'Mines case,!saylng that the miners had no right to pollute the stream so t~at tts quality was below that ofthe natural wa- tercourse. Thi~ was particularly important In this state be- cause It affect~d the waters of Clear Creek, properly named because in tts ~atural state, it runs through rock and gravel so as to be very clear and practically pure snow water. This early legal pronouncement is being emphasized more and more today, ' Decrees g~ing a right to divert for beneficial use referred entirely to volLlmes of water and not at all to the quality of that water. This m~tter came up in A-B CaHle Co. v. U.S., 196 Colo., 539, 5~~ P.2d 57 (1978) when the Pueblo Reservoir, constructed In,the streambed ofthe Arkansas River, Changed the quality of t,he river from heavily sedimented to essentially clearwater so that the Bessemer Ditch, which had always been' sealed by the natural sediment in the Arkansas River, became porous and leaky. The court was strongly divided as to the disposition of this case. The original majortty held that an appropriator has the right to the natural quality of a stream without man-made modIficationS: of that quality. On rehearing, Justice Don Kelly changed his ~sttion and accepted what had been originally the I)'llnortty 'fiew that only HP Is subject to appropriation, and th~refore the appropriator has no right to the quality of water In the stream as it was in tts state of nature. What the linal Groves majority had overlooked is the fact that the Colorado Constnution does not merely say that pure water is subj~ct to appropriation, but says the ''Water of every natL!ral stre~m" is subject to appropriation. This certainly dO~~ not ref~rto ~i~tilledwater or pure H20. In the dissenting OPinion, which onglnally was the majority opinion by Justice Willian:' Eric~son, appears the sentence: "I sincerely hope that thiS COllrt will reconsider this issue In future years." It is my ,view th~t this case must be reconsidered along with Colorado Springs v. Bender, 148 Colo. 458, 366 P.2d 552 (1961). ThEjy are a part of developing law to which the legislature i~ going to have to give consideration If tt expects theSupremll Court to avoid becoming a legislative body to fill a v!lcuum npt filled by the legislature. The gist Qf A-B Cattle is that the change in stream content wall man-made, just as in Chain O'Mines. No one today questions ttiat it is unlawful to dump man-made toxic material into a natu~al stream. The final decision in A-B Cattle over- 10Qks the f*t that the change in water quality complained of was man-made. . ;fhe rec~nt New Mexico case of Ensenada v. Sleeper Involved a transfer of a decreed right which worked a man- made change in the quality of stream flow. The court relied on A-B Cattle,in allowing the change, overlooking the fact that th~ changlj in water quality was man-made. 8