Chapter 2 - § 2.7 • ADJUDICATION ACTS OF 1943 AND 1969

• Jurisdiction: Colorado

§ 2.7 • ADJUDICATION ACTS OF 1943 AND 1969

To manage the demands for water in Colorado, where demand frequently exceeds supply, the Colorado General Assembly has adopted comprehensive adjudication and administrative procedures. In 1943, the General Assembly recodified years of prior legislation regarding the allocation and administration of water in Colorado.⁷⁶ In addition to compiling previously enacted provisions, the 1943 Act also codified the postponement doctrine, which states that within districts, the priority date assigned to a water right adjudicated in a subsequent decree must be at least one day later than the latest priority date awarded in the previous decree.⁷⁷

Prior to 1969, water rights in Colorado were adjudicated in district courts. Anyone with a claim could petition the court to adjudicate a certain water right and establish the respective priorities of the ditches in the district. Before a water right could be adjudicated, notice to all potentially interested parties was required. Often, a referee was employed to make necessary investigations regarding the water right claim, and the court would hold a hearing to determine the priorities of such rights. At the end of the proceeding, a decree was entered.⁷⁸ This system produced blanket judicial decrees adjudicating numerous water rights within the district under each decree. This system changed with the Water Rights Determination and Administration Act of 1969.

The Act of 1969 amounted to a major revision to the framework of Colorado water law.⁷⁹ As described by one of its drafters, it was an attempt to address the "well problem" by regulating junior priority wells within the priority system.⁸⁰ This problem arose because prior to 1957, Colorado did not regulate the construction of wells or use of groundwater. In 1965, the General Assembly enacted the Colorado Groundwater Management Act.⁸¹ Under this Act, for the first time, the state engineer could deny a well permit on the grounds of injury to other water rights.⁸² However, this did nothing to ameliorate the impact of the thousands of wells constructed throughout Colorado before 1965. Thus, one of the primary purposes of the 1969 Act was to integrate the administration of surface water and ground-water under a unitary priority system. The 1969 Act empowered the state engineer to adopt rules and regulations to integrate the use of surface and groundwater rights.⁸³ The state engineer's efforts to integrate surface and groundwater rights through rules and regulations was vigorously opposed and met with limited success.⁸⁴ New and more stringent groundwater regulations were required in the Arkansas River basin as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's determination that...