The Colorado River Compact is familiar primarily to those living in the American West. But the Colorado River Commission was a landmark event for all Americans. It was a major triumph of state over federal power. Its negotiations served as a model for later compacts that resolved uncertainties as the states wanted them resolved, rather than how Congress might dictate.
The Colorado River and Threat of Federal Intervention
Examine a map of the lower 48 states. Bisecting the map from north to south is the 100th meridian of west longitude. East of the 100th meridian, rainfall, snow, and streams supply water for lush woodlands, human consumption, and agriculture. But west of that line (aside from the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest), water is relatively scarce. Huge amounts of snow dump on the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada in winter and early spring, but when warm weather comes, the snowmelt pours down sparsely placed streams to the ocean, bypassing most Western land.Among the most important of the western streams is the Colorado River. Most of its water originates as Rocky Mountain snowmelt within the State of Colorado. Exiting the state from the west, the river flows into Utah and then into northern Arizona. Proceeding southwest through the Grand Canyon, it eventually forms Arizona’s border with Nevada and then with California. It then continues into Mexico, eventually reaching the Gulf of California between the Baja peninsula and the rest of Mexico.
The Colorado River is of supreme importance to the arid lands of the West. In the 19th century, settlers started to divert its waters for agriculture, ranching, human consumption, and recreation.
Delph Carpenter Steps In
Delphus E. Carpenter was Colorado’s foremost water lawyer. He practiced law in Denver, but he had been born in Greeley, a town benefiting from an irrigation system fed by Rocky Mountain snowmelt. He believed western streams should be allocated by westerners.Carpenter pointed out that the Constitution reserved to the states the prerogative, with the consent of Congress, of entering into compacts (contracts) among themselves (Article I, Section 10, Clause 3). In 1920, he began to urge the affected states to negotiate a Colorado River settlement of their own. The affected states were the five already mentioned (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah) and New Mexico and Wyoming, the sources of some of the Colorado River’s tributary streams.
The Colorado River Convention of States
Conventions of states are meetings of delegations of commissioners from participating states, with each state accorded sovereign equality. In American history, there have been more than 40 such conventions, although some have been known by other names. The Colorado River assembly, for example, called itself a “commission.” Nevertheless, it was a true convention of states and followed traditional convention protocols:- Each state, irrespective of size or population, had one vote;
- the convention adopted its own procedures;
- it elected its own officers, following the custom of choosing a chairman who was a commissioner and a secretary who was not;
- after the initial call, the convention controlled its own time and place of meeting;
- it stayed within its prescribed agenda; and
- it drafted a nonbinding recommendation for the participating states (the proposed Colorado River Compact).
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover is remembered as an unsuccessful president, but his previous career had been outstanding. He was an internationally famous engineer who had become even more famous for his brilliant organization of relief efforts in Europe during and after World War I. When President Warren Harding took office in 1921, he designated Hoover as his secretary of commerce—and then named him as the federal government’s representative on the Colorado River Commission.In recognition of Hoover’s stature, the other commissioners elected him to chair the meetings. The Colorado River Commission thereby became the third convention of states chaired by a future or former president of the United States. (The others were the 1787 Constitutional Convention, presided over by future President George Washington, and the 1861 Washington Conference Convention, chaired by former President John Tyler.)
Following the Colorado River Example
For several ensuing decades, states continued to negotiate water compacts through interstate conventions. In late 1928 and early 1929, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas negotiated a temporary compact allocating waters of the Rio Grande River. (Delph Carpenter represented Colorado.) In 1937, the same states met in convention and hammered out the permanent Rio Grande compact.A Postscript
On May 31, I arrived at my Independence Institute office in Denver. I found that an unknown person had left an old law book leaning on my office door—presumably as a gift. The book, compiled in 1908, was a rules and practice manual for members of Congress.I examined the book’s spine. At the bottom was the impression, in gold letters, of the lawyer who first owned it. It read:
“Delph E. Carpenter.”