The Glenwood post., 1911-04-15
DECISION AS TO PR1oRITEs-


regarding the adjudication of cond..
tional priorities of water rights. The
decision will affect number of flers
on the western slope waters.
When a district court IN the adiudi-
cation of water priorities DEGREES to
the claimants a fixed or absolute
amount of water and awards the ad-
ditional priorities upon the condition
of cultivating increased acreages,
these conditional priorities do not be-
come vested so as to cut of prior ap-
preparations unless they are asserted
with due diligence and are held ad-
versely at all times against such
prior appropriations.
Justice White in decision handed
down yesterday by the supreme court,
in the case of the Crawford Clipper
Ditch company against several other
ditch companies in Delta county. an
nounces this rule, which virtually
streams cannot be tied up indefinitely
! through the award of conditional
priorities.
The Crawford Clipper Ditch COM
pany was organized by pioneers of
Delta county and made appropriations
of water for irrigation from Smith s
! fork of the Gunnison river in 1881.
The Needle Rock, Daisy, Lone Rock
Williams and Pankey, Hill Mcleod,
! Scrub Oak, Cove and Pilot Rock
ditches made further appropriations
from Smith S Fork and in June, 1899,
all of the ditch owners applied to the
district court of Delta county for an
adjudication of their respective prior
tics.
! The court decreed to the ditcn
owners the amounts ,of water each
had appropriated and applied to the
made absolute, but the court made
the further award of one cubic foot Of
water a second for each 40 acres
OF land to be bought under cul-iya
1 tion with due diligence.
In the following year, 1900, the
Crawford Clipper Ditch company
applied to the district court for au
additional priority to water on the
ground that it had applied the water
to an increased acreage and that, by
| the terms of the decree of 1889, the
CONDITIONAL priorities should be
made absolute The court made the
additional award of IL cubic feet 20
the Crawford Clipper Ditch company
| in a decree signed February 12, 1903,
and the additional priority was made
| to antedate the priorities of the other
| d,tch owners under the decree of 1889.
| The new decree in favor of the Craw
ford Clipper Ditch company was admin
| istered by the water commissioner un-
til February, 1905, when the Needle
| Rock. Daisy. Lone Rock, Williams and
| Pankey and other ditch companies fl
| ed petitions to review the decree OF
! 1903. Upon these petitions the district
| court reestablished the decree of 1889
I as to absolute conditional priorities and
fixed the priority in each case as Of the
actual date when additional amounts of
water were actually applied to bene-
! fetal use.
The Crawford Clipper company made
! a claim to priority amounting to 80
cubic feet under the conditional right
ON increased acreage but the court held
that the evidence showed that the
Crawford Clipper company had not,
| beyond the use of flood water, claim
ed or used any amount of water In the
reclamation of additional acreage than
was absolutely awarded in the decree of
1889. and it sustained the contention
of the other ditch owners that, not
having used increased amounts of water
to reclaim additional acreage, nor hav-
.ng forbidden subsequent appropriations
the use of the water decreed to them,
they had abandoned any conditional
rights given to them Justice White
atiirms this ruling.
At the Methodist church the Sunday
school will take charge of the ser
vices tomorrow evening and a splen-
did program has been arranged. The
public is cordilly invited to attend.
Representative Horace Mann spent
a short time in Glenwood yesterday
morning while on his way to his home
in Rifle where he will conduct the
Easter services in his church today. He