Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130468
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:39:00+00:00

Document:
METHODS OF APPROPRIATING WATER OF WATERCOURSES 299 (2) Colorado's efforts in pioneering a combined water rights adjudication and water distribution system will be discussed more fully in chapter 15. Undoubtedly, it was the first important attempt made by any State legislature to provide (a) a special proceeding for the determination of controversies over water rights,392 which was strictly a judicial proceeding, and (b) a statewide administrative organization for controlling the distribution of water to those whose rights were thus adjudicated. The earliest statutory legislation was enacted in 1879 and 1881,393 Colorado did not then provide for administrative control over the acquisition of appropriative rights; and it never has done so. The 1881 legislature passed an act requiring the filing of a sworn statement in the county records within a certain period of time after commencement of work.394 This act continued in effect, with various amendments, until repealed in 1969.395 But the Colorado Supreme Court made it clear that the filing requirements were restricted to matters of evidence and that the lack thereof did not invalidate the appropriation.396 Colorado has no administrative procedure for control over the acquisition of appropriative rights, exclusive in operation, by which a State agency may choose among various applicants for permits and reject those which fail to meet statutory requirements. Despite the fact that Colorado has not elected to join the great majority of her western sister States in imposing public control upon the acquisition of appropriative rights in the water of watercourses, this does not mean that the confusion and proliferation of exaggerated claims of appropriative rights that were characteristic of the posting and filing era now prevail in this State. Quite the contrary. Colorado's method of solving these difficulties consists of (a) special proceedings for determination and adjudication of water rights,397 (b) tabulations of all decreed water rights, in order of seniority, and abandon- ments,398 and (c) State control over the distribution of stream waters to all those parties whose rights have been adjudicated, pursuant to the applicable court decrees.399 (3) Wyoming's pioneering in the field of administrative control over public waters was two-fold. It extended first to providing procedure for initiating new appropriative rights by application to the State officials for permits to 392 Long, Joseph R., "A Treatise on the Law of Irrigation," § 105 (1902). M3Colo. Laws 1879, p. 94; Laws 1881, pp. 119 and 142. 394Colo. Laws 1881, p. 161. 39SColo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § § 148-4-1 to 148-4-7 (1963), repealed, Laws 1969, ch. 373, § 20. 396De Haas v. Benesch, 116 Colo. 344, 351-352, 181 Pac. (2d) 453 (1947); Archuleta v. Boulder & Weld County Ditch Co., 118 Colo. 43, 53, 192 Pac. (2d) 891 (1948);Black v. Taylor, 128 Colo. 449, 457-458, 264 Pac. (2d) 502 (1953). 397Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 148-21-18 to 148-21-23 (Supp. 1969). 398 Id. § § 148-21-27 and 148-21-28. 399 Id. § 148-21-34.

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