The South Park water transfers : the geography of resource expropriation in Colorado, 1859-1994

• Main Author: Kindquist, Cathy Elsa
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4815

This thesis examines the agricultural-to-municipal water transfer process and the transformation of South Park, a high intermontane basin located west of the Denver metropolitan area in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The formal appropriation and exchange of water in this area began in 1859 with the arrival of miners and the first diversions of water into sluice boxes. In the 1860s, ranchers claimed water on a more permanent and extensive basis, using it to irrigate bottomlands to produce hay and other fodder crops. This study discusses the evolution of ranching in South Park from the 1860s to the present, with special attention to the delicately balanced system that had to be worked out in such a harsh environment. More centrally, the thesis outlines the legal and administrative system that developed in the state of Colorado to govern the use and the exchange of water; and it focuses upon the South Park water transfers and the consequent retirement of ranch lands, from the 1890s to the 1990s. Without the critical components of water and productive haylands, year-round ranching could not exist in this marginal land. Beginning in the 1890s, the cities at the foot of the Colorado Front Range began to assess the water resources of the high basin and contemplate acquisitions of key water rights to supply the needs of the growing urban core. In the century that followed, water rights were sold voluntarily by South Park ranchers, by their heirs, and by speculators, to Denver, Colorado Springs, and later the suburban municipalities of Aurora and Thornton. The transfer of water to urban hands tipped the balance economically, ecologically, and politically. What was relinquished was not simply control of water, but also control the semi-arid region's most vital resource and control of the area of origin's future. This thesis addresses these issues through use of archival materials (largely government records) and through the use of maps, photographic materials, newspapers, diaries, and other historical sources. Interviews and field work were also conducted, and information is presented in visual, tabular, and written form. As economic development and population expansion in arid and semi-arid areas continue, pressure on water resources is increasing. More and more, cities are turning to agricultural water rights and rural communities to obtain their supplies. In this context, it is important to better understand the expropriation process, and that is precisely what this thesis seeks to do.