Case Name: Rio Grande Reservoir and Ditch Co. v. Wagon Wheel Gap Improvement Co.
Court: Colorado Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Colorado
Decision Date: 1920-04
Citations: 68 Colo. 437
Docket Number: No. 9231
Parties: Rio Grande Reservoir and Ditch Co. v. Wagon Wheel Gap Improvement Co.
Judges: 
Reporter: Colorado Reports
Volume: 68
Pages: 437–457

Head Matter:
No. 9231.
Rio Grande Reservoir and Ditch Co. v. Wagon Wheel Gap Improvement Co.
1. Water Rights — Abandonment. The mere expressed intention to abandon a right in water is without effect to deprive the owner so expressing himself.
2. -Seepage, escaping from a reservoir is part of the stream from which it was diverted. It is regarded as already appropriated by those having adjudged priorities and is not subject to appriation.
3. In Ironstone Ditch Company v. Ashenfelter, 57 Colo. 31, the only question for decision was whether the proposed change would injuriously affect vested rights to the use of water from a particular stream. Expressions of the opinion upon other questions declared dicta,.
4. Adjudication of Priorities — Decree. Doubted whether a decree for direct irrigation can be granted in a proceeding to secure storage rights.
5. -Discriminations — Relief. The court below having denied the benefit of the doctrine of relation as to plaintiffs in error, who were shown to be entitled to it, the decree was reversed with specific directions to the court below to allow the several appropriations claimed by plaintiff, and the date and volume of each.
As to the affirmance of the decree disallowing a decree for direct irrigation, Garrigues, C. J., and Burke and Denison, J. J., dissent.
Error to Costilla District Court, Hon. A. Watson McHendrie, Judge.
Mr. Jesse Stephenson, Messrs. Goudy, Twitchell & Burkhardt and Mr. Frank B. Goudy, for plaintiff in error.
Mr. J. T. Adams, Mr. Ezra T. Elliott, Mr. Charles M. Corlett and Mr. George M. Corlett, for defendants in error.
Mr. James W. McCreery, Mr. Donald C. McCreery, Mr. Stotton R. Stephenson and Mr. Harry N. Haynes, Amici Curiae.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Bailey
delivered the opinion of the court.
Plaintiff in error, The Rio Grande Reservoir and Ditch Company, was awarded certain priorities for 43,565.06 acre feet of water for storage purposes in the Santa Maria reservoir in an adjudication proceeding in Costilla County. At the same time other awards were made to the several defendants in error, all of prior date to that of plaintiff in error. In the same adjudication plaintiff in error was denied a decree for an original appropriation for direct irrigation, for the Santa Maria Seepage Ditch, and brings the record here for review on both propositions.
The matters for- determination are, whether upon the evidence the date of the decree awarded to the Santa Maria Reservoir should have been earlier, and whether the capture of the seepage water by the Santa Maria Ditch can be regarded as such an original appropriation as to entitle it to a decree antedating all other appropriations for water for direct irrigation on the stream to which such seepage is plainly tributary.
Upon the first question it appears that the Santa Maria reservoir was originally a small lake, the basin surrounding which was surveyed by one Thorne in August, 1896, for the purpose of locating- a reservoir site. The Rio Grande Reservoir & Ditch Company was then organized and a map and statement prepared for it by Thorne was filed in accordance" with the federal act of 1891, for the purpose of obtaining a right of way over public lands.
By this map and statement the reservoir company claimed a reservoir capacity of 15,971.2 acre feet, which claim was lodged with the State Engineer on October 8, 1896. On December 5, 1896, the company was notified by the Secretary of the Interior that approval of the filings would be held in abeyance because of international complications with Mexico in relation to the diversion of water from the Rio Grande river in New Mexico and Colorado. At this date the company had expended over $4,000.00 in preliminary preparations and construction. It continued to expend money on the project, and to do, everything that could reasonably be done in the absence of a right of way across the public domain, to protect and perfect its claim.
In 1901 the company determined to increase the capacity of its reservoir, and until November, 1907, when its application for the right of way was approved, it constructed ditches, built a dam, made numerous surveys for its inlet ditch, and in other ways expended upon- the project, while the approval of its application for the right of way was pending, approximately $12,000.00.
An amended map and statement was filed in the office of the State Engineer, in August, 1906.- Work of some kind was done upon the project in 1907, 1908 and 1909, and in October, 1911, water was turned into the reservoir, which was used in 1911 upon lands to a total amount of 4,800 acre feet. In 1913 the amount so stored and used was 9,600 acre feet. In November, 1913, the reservoir was completed to its full capacity.
It is claimed that the court in its decree failed to give this company the benefit of the doctrine of relation, although that doctrine was- applied in behalf of all other claimants. It is urged that upon the evidence the company's priority should bear date as of August 7, 1896, the time of the original survey by Thorne. The record substantially supports the contention of the company that the decrees awarded defendants in error, of date superior to its decree, are based upon less evidence of work done, money expended and diligence employed, than that upon which it relies. It is urged that the provisions of section 3284, R. S. 1908, requiring the consideration of the diligence with which the work was in each case prosecuted, the nature of the work as to difficulties encountered, and all such like facts tending to show compliance with the law, in securing the priority claimed, was disregarded as to- this complainant, but recognized as to all the others, and that the court utterly ignored the natural difficulties connected with the project, and the delay occasioned by the federal authorities in granting the right of way, when it determined that due diligence had not been exercised by the company in putting the water to a beneficial use.
It conclusively appears that work was done or money expended by plaintiff in error in this property in every year from 1896 until 1909. During all but two years of this period the project was held in abeyance by federal order. The other reservoirs to which senior priorities were awarded were found to have exercised due diligence up to the time of their respective approval by the Department of the Interior, although their claim of diligence is supported by testimony identical with that offered by plaintiff in error in support of its claim. The trial court, however, applied the doctrine of relation to them, and refused it as to plaintiff in error, giving it a priority as of July 10, 1910, instead of August 7, 1896.
From the brief of defendant in error it appears that the findings complained of were based on a certain letter written by the manager of several of the reservoir companies, but not of the one which owns the Santa Maria reservoir. The letter purports to show that the companies for which the writer was manager had abandoned the idea of constructing the reservoir, and from the testimony of the writer and of others it appears to have been written to mislead rival companies as to the true intentions of plaintiff in error, with a view to obtaining land needed for the Santa Maria reservoir at better prices. It can not, however, in any way bind the plaintiff in error, because it at all times diligently continued work on the project, and bn the reservoir site referred to in the letter. Under the law an expressed intention to abandon does not cause forfeiture of rights unless possession is relinquished and acts of ownership cease. The letter, therefore, is not sufficient to justify the conclusion reached by the trial court that plaintiff in error had once abandoned the property and returned to it again in Í910.
As to the denial of an original appropriation for direct irrigation for the Santa Maria seepage ditch it appears that after the Santa Maria reservoir was filled seepage water therefrom appeared at the base of one of the adjacent hills. The ditch in question was then constructed, such seepage water captured and measured over a weir. It was sought to appropriate this seepage water and conduct it by ditch to the gates of a canal belonging to the company far down the stream and there apply it to lands under that system, for direct irrigation purposes. The right is based upon the theory that the waters having been impounded in the reservoir during the winter months when direct irrigation is impossible, have not been and could not have been appropriated for direct irrigation. Iron Stone Ditch Company v. Ashenfelter, 57 Colo. 31, 140 Pac. 177, is relied upon as authority to support this contention.
The question involved, as we view it, has been definitely settled against this contention in Comstock v. Ramsay, 55 Colo. 244, 133 Pac. 1107, where this court makes the following announcement under conditions similar to those involved in this case: "We take judicial notice of the fact that practically every decree on the South Platte River, except possibly only the very early ones, is dependent for its supply, and for years and years has been, upon return, waste and seepage waters. This is the very thing which makes an enlarged use of the waters of our streams for irrigation possible. To now permit one who has never had or claimed a right upon or from the river to come in, capture, divert and appropriate waters naturally tributary thereto, which are in fact nothing more or less than return and waste waters, and upon which old decreed priorities have long depended for their supply, would be in effect to reverse the ancient doctrine 'First in time, first in right', and to substitute in its stead, fortunately, as yet, an unrecognized one, 'Last in time, first in right.'
"Every appropriation of water on this stream, claimed and decreed for irrigation purposes, has been so claimed and decreed upon the theory that all waste and seepage water arising from the irrigation of land, or from the construction and maintenance of reservoirs using water from the river, and naturally returning to it, is available to supply such appropriations and decrees. To now permit independent appropriation and diversion of these waters in a way to adversely affect prior appropriations and decrees is in direct conflict alike with the spirit of the law under which such priorities have been decreed and the practical purposes for which these appropriations have been made and recognized. It is a well known fact that practically all appropriations down the stream are dependent on return, waste and seepage waters for their supply. If a part of these waters may be cut off, then all of them may be, with the result that the stream might thus be wholly depleted, and all appropriations and decrees, no matter how early, below the points where such waters are diverted, would be stripped of their rights and rendered useless and of no practical worth or value.
"There is no law anywhere to support the- contention that if these waters are naturally tributary to the river, still they may be taken by a new claimant to the damage and injury of prior appropriators upon that stream, simply because he captures and diverts them before they actually get into the river channel. If such act of capture and diversion can be upheld as lawful and proper, by the same reasoning a new claimant could divert the waters of a surface tributary, if he only be spry enough to capture and divert them before they actually reach and mingle with the waters of the main stream. When it is shown or admitted that these waters ultimately return to the river and thereby augment and replenish its flow, they are as much a part thereof as when they actually reach the stream. Whenever these waters start to flow back to the river and it is apparent that they will reach it, they constitute a part of the stream and are not subject to independent appropriation as new or added water, or because they have been used to serve one priority and have been thus artificially brought into that position."
This rule was followed and approved in Trowel Land & Irrigation Co. v. Bijou Irrigation District, 65 Colo. 202, 176 Pac. 296, in the following language: "The law makes no distinction as relates to the return of water to the stream between that from a reservoir supplied by a natural stream, or from a ditch supplied directly from the stream, regardless of the fact that the reservoir may be chiefly supplied in time of high water, or in the non-irrigation season.
"In the Ramsay case, the seepage water involved escaped water both from a reservoir and ditch, and it was there said, speaking of the identical stream here involved: 'Every appropriation of water on this stream, claimed and decreed for irrigation purposes, has been so claimed and decreed upon the theory that all waste and seepage water arising from the irrigation of land, or from the construction and maintenance of reservoirs using water from the river, and naturally returning to it, is available to supply such appropriations and decrees."
That part of the opinion in Iron Stone Ditch Co. v. Ashenfelter, supra, quoted by plaintiff in error in support of its contention, is purely gratuitous and volunteer matter, and not responsive to any issue in that case. This is plainly apparent since the proceedings there ' brought were to change the point of diversion of certain appropriations, and the only question for decision, and the only point which could have been properly decided, was whether the proposed change would injuriously affect vested rights to the use of water from that stream. The dictum relied upon cannot be held to overrule former decisions of this court, nor do we think there was any purpose or intention to do so. In any event, the matter in this, opinion relied upon can be considered only as the individual opinion of a single justice of this court, and of course, while persuasive, can in no sense be held to be the opinion of the court, much less can it be accounted as overruling our decisions which distinctively declare a different rule.
There is not, neither can there be, any question in this case of newly developed or added water, which subject presents a different question from the one actually involved, so that any such discussion is futile and wholly beside the case, since the seepage water under consideration, on the evidence adduced, is manifestly tributary to the Rio Grande river, from which stream the Santa Maria reservoir secured its storage appropriation. To permit the recapture of the seepage water from such reservoir, while on its way back to the river to which it is tributary, and allow it to be applied to land many miles down the river, under a claim of original appropriation for direct irrigation, prior in time to all other appropriations on the stream, would plainly constitute a wrongful use of water by the reservoir company, and would completely overturn the doctrine, so firmly etablished in this jurisdiction, that prior appropriation and use give the first and better right. German Ditch & Reservoir Co., et al. v. Platte Irrigation Co., 67 Colo. 390, 178 Pac. 896.
It is easy to see how decrees for seepage water for direct irrigation, if made subject to vested rights, may properly be allowed, and that such decrees might at times and under certain conditions prove most beneficial, but it is equally plain that, under a system of re-appropriation of seepage and return waters indefinitely carried on, awarding priorities antedating all others on the stream, the value of old rights might be not only greatly impaired, but utterly destroyed. Moreover, this proceeding was brought to obtain a decree for storage rights only, and it is of doubtful import whether in any event a decree for direct irrigation could properly be allowed in such action.
The findings and decree of the trial court will be reversed as to the date of the appropriation awarded plaintiff in error for storage in the Santa Maria reservoir and the cause remanded with directions to the court, below to modify the decree and award plaintiff in error a storage capacity as of August 11, 1896, for 15,871.21 acre feet, of which 9,600 feet is absolute; also a priority as of September 22, 1902, for 27,954.85 acre feet, which together with the remainder of the August 11, 1896, priority, is conditional. That part of the decree denying an appropriation of seepage water to the Santa Maria seepage ditch for direct irrigation, antedating all other direct irrigation decrees on the stream, is affirmed.
Decision en beme.
On the reversal of the judgment as to date of the reservoir priority, all concur. On the affirmance of the disallowance of a decree for direct irrigation, the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Burke and Mr. Justice Denison dissent.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.