Community Acequias in Colorado's Rio Culebra Watershed: A Customary Commons in the Domain of Prior Appropriation

100 Pages Posted: 9 Oct 2013

See all articles by Gregory Alan Hicks

Gregory Alan Hicks

University of Washington - School of Law

Devon Peña

University of Washington - Departments of Anthropology and American Ethnic Studies

Date Written: 2003

Abstract

Community control of water resources has great cultural and political importance when people’s identity and ways of living depend on their relationship to specific landscapes and natural resources. In this paper we focus on the Colorado Acequia Act, a 2009 law intended to provide an alternative and culturally specific legal regime for the management of water rights and water distribution systems in Hispano communities. We analyze the challenges of meeting the Act’s policy goals in the shadow of Colorado’s dominant prior appropriation system of water allocation. We note the continuity of the Act’s purposes with international law principles favoring recognition of a human right to water.

Keywords: water law, natural resources

Suggested Citation

Hicks, Gregory Alan and Peña, Devon, Community Acequias in Colorado's Rio Culebra Watershed: A Customary Commons in the Domain of Prior Appropriation (2003). University of Colorado Law Review, Vol. 74, No. 2, pp 387-486, 2003, University of Washington School of Law Research Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2269880

Gregory Alan Hicks (Contact Author)

University of Washington - School of Law ( email )

William H. Gates Hall
Box 353020
Seattle, WA 98105-3020
United States

Devon Peña

University of Washington - Departments of Anthropology and American Ethnic Studies ( email )

Box 353100
Seattle, WA 98195
United States

HOME PAGE: http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/users/dpena

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