Water in Colorado is of significant importance, as the American state of Colorado is the 7th-driest state in America. [1] As result, water rights generate conflict (for example, see Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States), with many water lawyers in the state.
Water in the American Southwest has always been a scarce commodity and in the 12,000 years since the Clovis people dug the first water wells in the region water has continued to be a topic of concern. The state of Colorado is a headwater state, which means that many rivers in the western and midwestern United States originate in Colorado. The Platte River, the Arkansas River, the Rio Grande River and the Colorado River all have their headwaters in Colorado. [2] Colorado's use of these waters has an effect on users downstream. Prior to the creation of the Territory of Colorado in 1861, few laws existed that pertained specifically to the issue of water rights in the area. [3]
When settlers and pioneers first came the area that would encompass Colorado, the common system in the eastern United States for dealing with water was known as riparian water rights. Under this system anyone owning the land through which water ran could use a reasonable amount of water for any purpose as long as it continued downstream and was available for the next land owner. While this system worked well in the east where water was abundant, in the west water was harder to come by. Farmers and miners required large amounts of water for their professions and began to dig 'ditches' or canals to divert water to more convenient locations. This system was known as prior-appropriation water rights, where a certain amount of water could be diverted for 'beneficial use,' and these water rights could be sold or transferred separately from the land. The appropriation doctrine was officially adopted in Colorado in 1872 and within 20 years the so-called Colorado Doctrine had been adopted, in whole or part, by most of the states in the Western United States that had an arid climate. [3] [4]
At the end of the 19th century many water systems were over-appropriated. Alternating years of droughts and floods created havoc for land owners and rights holders down stream. In 1902 Kansas took Colorado to the Supreme Court over the water usage of the Arkansas River. The federal government weighed in on the case and the Supreme Court ruled that the states and federal government share jurisdiction and each must be treated fairly. Seven states in the region, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona and California, came together as the League of the Southwest to promote development of the Colorado River. But as more conflicts arose over water rights more lawsuits were filed. In 1922 Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, brought representatives from the seven states to Washington, D.C. to negotiate an interstate treaty. This commission, the brainchild of Delphus E. Carpenter, resulted in the Colorado River Compact. The compact allocated water to each of the states, allowing agricultural irrigation, urban development, and large projects such as the Hoover Dam and Lake Powell. More compacts covering other river basins soon followed. [2]
The central state office is the Colorado Division of Water Resources. The Colorado Water Conservation Board also has an important role.
Colorado is known as the "Headwaters State" because several of the West's most important rivers rise in its Rocky Mountains. Colorado has eight major river basins and several aquifers. The majority of the water supply falls as snow in the Rocky Mountains. The continental divide traverses the state, causing snowmelt-filled rivers to flow toward the Pacific Ocean on the west side of the divide and the Atlantic Ocean on the east side. Because of weather patterns, more snow falls on the west side, providing more water there. However, most of the state's population is on the east side.
Transmountain diversions have solved some of this disparity. The Colorado-Big Thompson Project brings water from the Colorado River Basin to the Front Range of Colorado, primarily in the northeastern corner of the state. The Fryingpan-Arkansas Project brings water from the Fryingpan River Basin to the southeastern corner. Though originally designed primarily for agricultural water supply, both projects have been increasingly supplying Colorado's growing municipalities.
Various in-state interests make demands on Colorado's scarce water resources, including:
Denver Water (government agency) is the largest municipal supplier in the state. It relies on multiple watersheds on both sides of the divide. Mountain Mutual Reservoir Company and North Fork Associates (founded by the brothers Ronald and William Blatchley) are the largest private supplier of ground and surface water rights, prior-appropriation and senior water rights, and water engineering services in Colorado.
In-state demands also come from:
Because of river compacts, Colorado doesn't control all the water originating within its borders, and out-of-state players have their own interests, particularly of the "big four" Colorado rivers which arise within the state:
The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/Mountain West. Its drainage basin includes much of the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, much of the populated region known as the Colorado Front Range and Eastern Plains, and a portion of southeastern Wyoming in the vicinity of the city of Cheyenne. It joins the North Platte River in western Nebraska to form the Platte, which then flows across Nebraska to the Missouri. The river serves as the principal source of water for eastern Colorado. In its valley along the foothills in Colorado, it has permitted agriculture in an area of the Colorado Piedmont and Great Plains that is otherwise arid.
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas River Valley. The headwaters derive from the snowpack in the Sawatch and Mosquito mountain ranges. It flows east into the Midwest via Kansas, and finally into the South through Oklahoma and Arkansas.
The Platte River is a major river in the State of Nebraska. It is about 310 mi (500 km) long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over 1,050 miles (1,690 km). The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itself is a tributary of the Mississippi River which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Platte over most of its length is a broad, shallow, meandering stream with a sandy bottom and many islands—a braided stream.
The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operation of the diversion, delivery, and storage projects that it has built throughout the western United States for irrigation, water supply, and attendant hydroelectric power generation. Currently the Bureau of Reclamation is the largest wholesaler of water in the country, bringing water to more than 31 million people, and providing one in five Western farmers with irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland, which produce 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. The Bureau of Reclamation is also the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the western United States.
The Cache la Poudre River, also known as the Poudre River, is a river in the state of Colorado in the United States.
Water resources law is the field of law dealing with the ownership, control, and use of water as a resource. It is most closely related to property law, and is distinct from laws governing water quality.
Prior appropriation: In water rights, the legal doctrine of prior appropriation holds that the first person to take a quantity of water from a water source for "beneficial use" has the right to continue to use that quantity of water for that purpose. 78 Am. Jur. 2d Waters § 355 (2021). These individuals are the senior users. Senior users do not "own" the water source. Rather, they have the right to use the water source within the limitations of a state's established prior appropriation laws.Douglas County v. Sedalia Water and Sanitation District, 343 P.3d 16.
Water right in water law refers to the right of a user to use water from a water source, e.g., a river, stream, pond or source of groundwater. In areas with plentiful water and few users, such systems are generally not complicated or contentious. In other areas, especially arid areas where irrigation is practiced, such systems are often the source of conflict, both legal and physical. Some systems treat surface water and ground water in the same manner, while others use different principles for each.
Hagerman Pass, elevation 11,925 ft (3,635 m), is a high mountain pass that crosses the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The pass traverses the Sawatch Range west of Leadville, connecting the headwaters of the Arkansas River on the east with the upper valley of the Fryingpan River above Basalt, in the basin of the Colorado River.
The Colorado–Big Thompson Project is a federal water diversion project in Colorado designed to collect West Slope mountain water from the headwaters of the Colorado River and divert it to Colorado's Front Range and plains. In Colorado, approximately 80% of the state's precipitation falls on the West Slope, in the Rocky Mountains, while around 80% of the state's growing population lives along the eastern slope, between the cities of Fort Collins and Pueblo.
Water trading is the process of buying and selling water access entitlements, also often called water rights. The terms of the trade can be either permanent or temporary, depending on the legal status of the water rights. Some of the western states of the United States, Chile, South Africa, Australia, Iran and Spain's Canary Islands have water trading schemes. Some consider Australia's to be the most sophisticated and effective in the world. Some other countries, especially in South Asia, also have informal water trading schemes. Water markets tend to be local and informal, as opposed to more formal schemes.
California's interconnected water system serves over 30 million people and irrigates over 5,680,000 acres (2,300,000 ha) of farmland. As the world's largest, most productive, and potentially most controversial water system, it manages over 40 million acre-feet (49 km3) of water per year.
Lake Pueblo State Park is a state park located in Pueblo County, Colorado. It includes 60 miles (97 km) of shoreline and 10,000 acres (40 km2) of land. Activities it offers include two full-service marinas, recreational fishing, hiking, camping and swimming at a special swim beach.
The Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 was an act passed in the 110th United States Congress and enacted on May 8, 2008.
The Division of Water Resources within the Kansas Department of Agriculture governs the use and allocation of the state's water resources; regulates the construction of dams, levees and other changes to streams; represents Kansas on its four interstate river compacts; and coordinates the National Flood Insurance Program in Kansas. These responsibilities are accomplished through the administration of 30 state laws, including the Kansas Water Appropriation Act, Groundwater Management District Act, Obstructions in Streams, and the Levee Law.
Sugar Loaf Dam is a dam in Lake County of mid-Colorado, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Leadville.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) operates as a division of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. The Colorado legislature founded the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) through the passage of House Bill no. 6 in 1937 for the "purpose of aiding in the protection and development of the waters of the state". The bill decreed that the agency would be run by twelve directors, who convened for the first time on July 13, 1937.
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