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<br />. <br /> <br />COLORADO WATER QUALITY LAW: <br />PROTECTION FOR MAXIMUM BENEFICIAL <br />USE OF WATER RIGHTS <br /> <br />W <br />N <br />CI.J <br />(.0 <br /> <br />by Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr. <br />Partner, Davis, Graham & Stubbs <br /> <br />Prepared for the Colorado Water Congress <br />Annual Convention <br />February 19 & 20, 1980 <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />WATER QUALITY PROTECTION FOR BENEFICIAL USES - <br />THE COMMON LAW BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS <br /> <br />The "Colorado Doctrine" of prior appropriations'is <br />a doctrine of maximum utilization of the tributary and surface <br />4t water resource for beneficial use, administered as a vested <br />property right according to the principle of first in time/ <br />first in right. Fellhauer v. People, 167 Colo. 320, 447 <br />P.2d986 (1968). <br />However, water users are not entitled by their <br />appropriative rights to generate waste ,into water they <br />appropriate and return to the stream waste products which <br />will detrimentally affect the beneficial uses to which other <br />users have put, or can put, the water resource. The Humphreys <br />Tunnel and Mininq Company v. Frank,46 Colo. 524, 531-532 (1909) <br />(mine and mill wastes); ~ v. Town of Craig, 68 Colo. 337, <br />341-342 (1920) (municipal sewage); WEmore v. Chain O'Mines, <br />~., 96 Colo. 319, 325, 44 P.2d 1024 (1934) (mine and mill <br />wastes); The Farmers Irrigation Company v. The Game and Fish <br />Commission of the State of COlorado, 149 Colo. 318, 323-324, <br />369 P.2d 557 (1962) (fish hatchery wastes); The Suffolk Gold <br />. Mining & Milling Company v. The San Miguel Consolidated Mining <br />