Turn on the tap, water pours out. We take it for granted. But our water was hard-fought in the early 20th century by some of the Roaring Fork Valley’s legendary champions of water rights.

In the late 1880s, Glenwood Springs attorney Edward T. Taylor dealt mainly with cases involving land and water issues. Particularly concerned with protecting and promoting the growth of agricultural industries on the Western Slope, water became Taylor’s primary focus as he rose through his political career. Taylor served in the Colorado State Legislature from 1896 until 1908, when he was elected to the U.S. Congress. He was Chairman of the Committee on Irrigation of Arid Lands, among others, and continued fighting for Colorado’s water rights until his death in 1941 at the age of 83. His remains rest in Rosebud Cemetery in Glenwood Springs.

One of Taylor’s famous impassioned speeches was made at the House Committee meeting of Feb. 1, 1910, in response to an attempt by the federal government to appropriate Colorado’s water, as recorded in “Federal Encroachments Upon the Rights of the West:”

Never before in the history of this country has there been such a systematic and determined effort upon the part of the Federal Government toward infringements upon the rights of the West … I am amazed at the boldness of the proposals [and] I cannot realize how the Members of this honorable House … can calmly consider the propositions to absolutely take from the people of the arid west some of the most sacred property rights they have … violating the very constitutional guarantees upon which those states were admitted into this Union.

The Colorado territory gained statehood in 1876 with water laws included in its Constitution. Article 16 established the Right of Appropriation:

The right to divert unappropriated waters of any natural stream for beneficial uses shall never be denied. Priority of appropriation shall give the better right as between those using the water for the same purpose, but when the waters of any natural stream are not sufficient for the service of all those desiring the use, those using the water for domestic purposes shall have the preference over those claiming for any other purpose, and those using the water for agricultural purposes shall have the preference over those for manufacturing purposes.

Taylor was instrumental in the passing of the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which included his proposal to rename the Grand River “the Colorado River.” The compact was an agreement between the seven Colorado River Basin states and the Federal Government to apportion use of river’s water equitably between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states. 

Water has always been a top issue in Colorado politics, requiring leaders to manage conflicts with the federal government, other states and even regions within the state. The Western Slope has been at the center of that conflict from the start.

In his book, “As Precious as Blood,” Mesa University history professor Steven C. Schulte recounts early attempts to maintain an adequate water supply for the Western Slope. His preface includes this summary:

From the 1930s to the 1970s, Colorado engaged in a series of battles that collectively could be called Colorado’s twentieth-century water wars. The conflict catalyst in its simplest form may be reduced to this: the majority of Colorado’s precipitation arises high in the mountainous region west of the Continental Divide, in an area referred to as the Western Slope. However, the vast majority of the state’s population resides on the Eastern Slope, or Front Range.

Defending water rights often required a good lawyer. In the 1930s, following in Taylor’s footsteps, Frank Delaney of Glenwood Springs became the leading Western Slope “water attorney.” He developed strategies that eventually led to his drafting of the Colorado Water Conservation District legislation, passed in 1937.

Both Taylor and Delaney fought hard to keep enough water in Western Slope rivers to allow expansion of agricultural production and municipal use during the development of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which proposed to take water from streams feeding the Colorado River and divert it to northeastern Colorado. The project, comprising 11 reservoirs, 18 dams, the Alva B. Adams Tunnel and six power plants, took nearly 20 years to build and was completed in 1956.

As Colorado’s population kept expanding, water needs increased and more diversion tunnels were created to carry the precious liquid from abundant Western Slope rivers to the arid plains of eastern Colorado. 

Ruedi Reservoir, constructed in 1968 as part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, is a diversion system that takes water from the headwaters of the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork River basins to the Arkansas Valley.

Colorado’s State and U.S. Representatives continued the battle for water into the late 1900s. But as their efforts often involved creating legislation aimed at reclamation projects, that is, the construction of dams, their efforts ran up against the burgeoning environmental movement.

In recent years, as western states have experienced increasing drought conditions, water issues are heating up. Even local governments must get involved, taking measures and enacting restrictions to protect the supply in nearby rivers.

So, next time you turn on the tap, don’t take that water for granted; be grateful for the early pioneers of Colorado’s water rights legislation.