The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-02-06

The supreme court yesterday handed
down an opinion written by Chief JUS
tice Zane and concurred in by Justice
Miner and District Judge Johnson in
the case of the North Point Consolidat-
ed Irrigation company, appellant, VS..
the Utah & Salt Lake Canal company
the South Jordan Canal company, the
North Jordan Irrigation company and
the city and county of Salt Lake.
The decree appealed from is reversed
and the cause is remanded with direc-
lions to the court below to set aside its
findings so far as they conflict with this
opinion and to make additional findings
in conformity with it, and to enter a
decree perpetually enjoining the three
canal companies named as defendants
from draining the seepage and surplus
water from the lands irrigated from
their canals or any or either of them,
or the waters of the chain of lakes
mentioned in the pleadings, through the
drain ditch from Decker's lake, also
mentioned in the pleadings, or ether
wise into the Salt Lake surplus water
canal or into White lake, a part of it,
and requiring them TO fill up said drain
ditch and ordering a writ of injunc-
ton to the same effect against each of
the defendants.
Costs are awarded to the , aintif
against the defendants.
The plaintiff alleged that the defend
ants, the Utah 6, Salt Lake Canal COM
pany, the South Jordan Canal COM
pany and the North Jordan Irrigation
company, each owns ard operates a
system of canals or water bitches to
the south and west of the plaintiffs
canals, and on higher ground, through
which they take water from the river
Jordan for the purpose of irrigating
the lands lying below them; that the
country through which they extend
and the land they irrigate is in many
places strongly impregnated with alkaIi
and other mineral substances, which
render the drainage water from it
wholly untitled for use for any culin-
airy purposes; that these canal COM
panies have been accustomed to take
out from the river Jordan large guam
titles Of water in excess Of what was
used for the proper irrigation of the
lands irrigated from it, and have
turned upon them large quantities of
waste water which saturates the aka
line and mineraliZed lands; that this
excessive use of irrigating waters after
percolating through and draining such
lands, forms a chain of
several small lakes or ponds and
slOughs; that in order to relieve them,
as well as the lands submerged by and
thereto, the defendant canal
constructed and maintain a
series of artificial channels connecting
each and all of these several lakes or
ponds and sloughs with Decker's lake,
by which they drain large quantities
Of strongly mineralized and saline
waste and seepage waters into Deck
er's lake, and which is wholly unfit for
irrigation or culinary use. and is de-
structive to all vegetable growth with
which ii comes in contact; that the
three defendant canal companies, in
stead of draining such surplus and
seepage water back into the Jordan
river, the natural source from which
they take their water, constructed
about four years prior to the com
mencement Of this action, a large arti-
fetal drain ditch from Decker's lake TO
the surplus canal through which the
plaintiff receives its water for irriga-
lion. culinary and other domestic pur-
poses, and that they still continue to
Train said seepage, mineralized. alkali /
water into such surplus canal above the |.
point where plaintiff takes its water. /
the same unfit for use to the 4
great and irreparable injury and dam
age to the plaintiff.
The plaintiff asked for an injunction |
preventing the defendants from contin- !
ling those acts. and for damages.
The trial court refused to grant the /
Injunction, which ruling is now re-
veTsed,
The opinion is very voluminous, con-
tanning % pages of typewriter mat
-er