THE DISTRIBUTION OF WATER 
POWERS AND DUTIES OF IRRIGATION OFFICIALS 
UNDER COLORADO LAWS. 
By H. N. HAYNES. 
It is the purpose of this paper to consider the powers and 
duties of state officials in distributing water. The American 
law of irrigation is yet in a formative state. It was unknown to 
the common law of England, from which we have borrowed the 
great body of our system of jurisprudence. It has been gradu¬ 
ally building as the result of customs of the early settlers in the 
arid part of the United States, judicial decisions announced 
thereon, and the enactment of statutes, both by Congress and 
the several Territorial and State governments. Most of the de¬ 
cisions of the courts on irrigation subjects up to this time, have 
pertained to questions of appropriation of water from running 
streams, and from other sources of supply, and to controversies 
between rival ditch owners as to their relative rights, while com¬ 
paratively little attention has been given to the matters now under 
consideration. So noticeable is the dearth of judicial decisions 
on the question of distribution of water by officials in charge, 
that in the two text-books on irrigation law, written respectively 
by Mr. Kinney and Mr. Long, the space devoted to the subject 
occupies but a very small fraction of the volumes. 
In Long on Irrigation, which is divided into 15 chapters, 
but one chapter, the 12th, containing only four sections, is on 
the subject of public control of irrigation, and that chapter con¬ 
sists in the main of references to statute law. The space devoted 
to the same subject in Kinney on Irrigation, is about as limited. 
It follows from the foregoing that little more can be said 
on the subject of the duties of the several water officials than to 
call attention to the statutes of the state prescribing their duties, 
to make some comments thereon with reference to practical ques¬ 
tions likely to arise, to indicate the probable position which may 
be taken by the courts, and to suggest what line of policy and 
action should guide the officials under the statutes, to carry out 
their true intent and purpose, and so far as possible, to obviate 
the necessity of contentions and unnecessary litigation. It can 
readily be seen, it is difficult to go very far into this discussion 
