Title: Four Counties Wu Ass'n v. Colorado R. Wat. Con. Dist.

State: colorado

Issuer: Colorado Supreme Court

Document:

425 P.2d 259 (1967) FOUR COUNTIES WATER USERS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff in Error, v. COLORADO RIVER WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT, Defendant in Error. No. 21358. Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc. January 23, 1967. Rehearing Denied April 10, 1967. Ireland, Stapleton, Pryor & Holmes, D. Monte Pascoe, Denver, for plaintiff in error. Frank Delaney, Glenwood Springs, for defendant in error. DAY, Justice. This writ of error is directed to portions of conditional decrees for the appropriation of water entered by the district court of Routt County in a supplemental adjudication of water rights in Water District 58. The court granted to defendant in error, Colorado River Water Conservation District (hereinafter referred to as the District) a conditional decree for what is described as the Toponas Project with the priority date in 1951 and an additional conditional decree for what was denominated as the Wessels Project, with a priority date in 1954. There is no dispute that the district is entitled to have awarded to it the conditional decrees. Only the priority dates are challenged. Plaintiff in error Four Counties Water Users Association (hereinafter referred to as Four Counties) objected and excepted to the priority dates awarded to the district for the reasons: The question whether due diligence was shown since the priority dates granted in the district's decrees, and the further problem whether the Bureau of Reclamation of *260 the United States is a predecessor in title and claim of the District need not be answered in view of our resolution of the question whether there was an actual intent to appropriate as of the dates in dispute. We find from the facts hereinafter set forth and from the law applicable thereto, there was not an appropriation by either the District or the Bureau of Reclamation as of the priority dates granted to the District. A summary of what was done initially on both projects upon which the claims for the decrees are founded follows: In the record made in support of the decree for the Wessels Project it was described as one to divert water of the Yampa River for the purpose of irrigating lands along the river above Steamboat Springs. The project includes construction of a small reservoir on the Yampa River and a canal from the reservoir. In July of 1954, the Bureau of Reclamation instituted a reconnaissance investigation of the Yampa White Basin, particularly that component which was denominated the Wessels Project. This investigation consisted, among other things, of a land classification survey to determine whether the lands which would be irrigated by the project were suitable therefor and would be benefited thereby. This reconnaissance investigation resulted in the publishing in 1957 of a Yampa White Project Reconnaissance Report issued by Region 4-B of the Bureau. As to the nature of this report and of the reconnaissance conducted three years earlier, one Mr. Jennings, Project Manager of the Bureau of Reclamation, at Grand Junction, offered uncontroverted testimony which leaves little doubt as to what was intended by the work of 1954. He testified: In further referring to the 1957 Yampa White Project Reconnaissance Report, Jennings testified that such report would go through channels to the Department of Interior and Bureau of Reclamation and "would probably go to Congress for information purposes; it wasn't a feasibility report or a report on which project authorization is made * * * it would go more for their information." (Emphasis supplied.) Thereafter were the following questions and answers: After the publication of the 1957 report, the Bureau, according to Mr. Jennings, did not undertake "any specific work" in connection with the project. The first work which would show an intent to take water was described by witness Philip Smith, Secretary-Engineer for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. He testified that the District "studied a revised plan on the Wessels Project with a larger reservoir at the Pleasant Valley Reservoir site, but in order to conform with the plan as more or less adopted and that the Bureau was standing by on the Wessels Project, our final filing on the project was for the Bear Reservoir. *261 The canal system there was no change in it." On January 23, 1962 the District filed a map and statement with the State Engineer pursuant to law. The map and statement were based upon surveys made by the District in September of 1961. There is no dispute that these surveys were such as to constitute the initiation of an appropriation, and there is further no dispute that due diligence was shown from the time of those surveys up to the date the District presented its claim in July 1962. Four Counties Water Users Association v. Colorado River Water Conservation District, Colo., 414 P.2d 469. The evidence with respect to the Toponas Project is similar. The land classification survey undertaken by the Bureau of Reclamation was commenced in August, 1951. Regarding the nature of the work that was done on the Toponas Project by the Bureau is the following testimony: The Toponas Project was reported on in February, 1954, by incorporation in the "Cliff Divide Project" [Toponas unit]. It was similar to the report in which the Wessels Project was discussed. A pertinent statement in the report is the following: It is undisputed that on February 26, 1963 the District commenced surveys on the project which resulted in the filing of maps and statement of claims with the State Engineer on October 4th of the same year. These surveys were the same kind and embodied the same features as the Toponas Project contemplated by the Bureau report with the exception of a change of the alignment of the Toponas canal. It is an inexorable rule of Colorado water law that, in order to establish a right to relate back to a point of time from which the priority is to commence, there must have been on the date claimed some act evidencing an intent to take water and to apply it to a beneficial use. As we stated in Rocky Mountain Power Co. v. White River Electric Ass'n, 151 Colo. 45, 376 P. 2d 158: This court has defined "an appropriation" as "the intent to take, accompanied by some open, physical demonstration of the intent, and for some valuable use." (Emphasis supplied.) See Fort Morgan Land & Canal Co. v. South Platte Ditch Co., 18 Colo. 1, 30 P. 1032; Larimer Co. R. Co. v. People, ex rel. Luthe, 8 Colo. 614, 9 P. 794; McDonald v. Bear River, etc., Co., 13 Cal. 220. We find from the description of the work done by the Bureau of Reclamation in the reports previously alluded to that there was no intent to take water and no physical demonstration from which such intent could be inferred so as to constitute the initial step in an appropriation. In Four Counties Water Users Association v. Colorado River Water Conservation District, supra, we made the following apt statement: Not every kind of survey reflects an intention to take water. As we stated in Fruitland Irr. Co. v. Kruemling, 62 Colo. 160, 162 P. 161: As has been stated, there is no dispute that the District surveys, followed by the filing of the maps and statements, demonstrate concretely an intention to take water and to go forward with the projects described. The dates on which such steps were taken were also not in dispute. Accordingly, the judgment is reversed with directions to the court to modify the District's conditional decrees as of the dates such surveys were takenin September 1961 on the Wessels Project, and in February 1963 on the Toponas Project. HODGES and KELLEY, JJ., not participating.