Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-09-06
WATER RIGHTS.
Questions Of Law Involved in Irrigation
Projects in Colorado.
(Rocky Mountain News.)

(ROcky Mountain NeWS.)
One of the most intelligent and we'll
informed men engaged in considering
the various problems connected with ir-
rigation is Elwood Mead, of Cheyenne.
chief of the irrigation investigation
now in progress under the auspices of
the department of agriculture. On the
opening day of the farmers national
congress in Colorado Springs he deliv-
cred an address in which he presented
some of the problems which must be
solved if irrigation is to attain it's max
imum of good in the reclamation of the
arid region.
1t is unfortunate that in Colorado the
legal problems of irrigation followed
close upon the heels of it's practical de-
velopment. Colorado was a pioneer in
irrigation upon an extensive scale
among communities subject to the COM
mon law. Irrigation was practiced in
New Mexico for generations before the
first American constructed a ditch in
this state, but in that territory the pro-
visions Of the Spanish law governed,
and none of the many legal problems
that have come before the courts of
Colorado arose. No sooner, however,
reclaim their land with water drawn
from streams than conflicts arose con-
corning water rights.
In the adjudication of these questions
the courts attempted to adhere as
closely as possible to the doctrines of
the common law. 1t was early estab-
of right, and plain and simple as this
doctrine may seem, it has led to adju-
dications which may yet give the law
makers and judges of Colorado inter-
minable difficulties. Ignorance of prac-
teal irrigation opened the way to
abuses. Claimants, ignorant of the real
duty of water in respect to the quanti-
ty needed, asserted that they should be
adjudged prior appropriations of a GER
tain number of inches. The courts be-
ing no better informed, allowed many
such claims, and as a result the records
of our courts show that judgments
have been entered allowing appropria-
tors much larger quantities of water
than their land requires.
Along many streams bitches have
been constructed since those judgments
We're rendered, and unused water has
been employed to supply new ~irrigators.
Subsequently in more than one case the
persons to whom the excessive water
rights We're adjudged have asserted
those rights by applying the water to
lana upon Wnlcn IL was mol USED Wnen
the adjudications were made. This has
deprived the intermediate irrigators of
rights acquired when water covered by
these adjudications was running to
waste.
1t is evident that such excessive wa
ter rights would not have been con-
firmed by the courts had the judges
and the farmers themselves had a bet
ter knowledge of the use of water when
the claims were first asserted. 1t Is
clear also that practical justice de-
mands that the subsequent irrigators be
protected. But a right once adjudged
by the courts to be valid cannot be ia
ken from it's wne without compensa-
ton. Thus a difficult problem Is pre-
sented, and it is one which would not
have arisen if practical irrigation had
been fully understood in this state
when the courts were first asked to set
tie irrigation disputes, and, incidental
ly, establish presidents.
This is one of the legal problems to
the study Of which Mr.. Mead has given
attention. Through knowledge of Colo
radios entanglements, he and other
Wyoming men were enabled to frame