WSP08323

• File Number: 8051
• Description: Area of Origin
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 12/1/1985
• Title: Guidelines for Developing Area-Of-Origin Compensation -- A Research Report Prepared for the Colorado Water Resources Research Institute
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

boundaries.64

The 1937 Act contained the following restriction:

Provided, however, that not to exceed an
annual average amount of 320,000 acre-feet of
water, for any period of five consecutive
years, reckoned in continuing progressive
series, beginning with the first year of
transrnountain diversion of water, shall be
transported from the watershed of any and all
rivers subject to the Colorado River Compact
and the Boulder Canon Act. (U.S.C. Title 43,
Sections 617 to 6l7-t) by all districts
organized or to be organized under this Act,
collectively, until such time as a division
of water allocated to the several upper basin
states under said Compact has been made under
agreement between said states, or otherwise
determined.65

Since the CBT Project was expected to divert 320,000 acre-feet,

this provision effectively precluded any other transrnountain

diversions out of the Colorado River basin by other conservancy

districts.

2.

The Law.

After six years of discussion and negotia-

tion, the l.egislature removed this restriction and replaced it

with the fOllowing provision that is still the law today:

Prov ided, however, tha t any works or
facilities planned and designed for the
exportation of water from the natural basin
of the Colorado River and its tributaries in
Colorado, by any district created under this

64Irrigation districts are able only to tax landowners with
irrigable acreage within the district to repay bonds.
Colo. Rev. Stat. 837-41-121 and S37-42-126(a) .(1973). The
broader taxing authority for conservancy districts vastly
increased the potential ability to finance water projects.
Colo. Rev. Stat. 837-45-121 to 125 (1973 & Supp. 1984).

65Ch. 266 813, 1937 Colo. Sess. Laws 1309, 1325.

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