Court Opinion

ID: 9553525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:31:01.273531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:28.563189
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Sutton,
formerly concurring, now dissenting:
On reconsideration of this matter on the Petition for *481Rehearing I have concluded that it is error to affirm the trial court’s finding that the spring in question is tributary to Coal Creek.
The basis of our affirmance in this matter was upon the premise that there was some proper evidence to support the trial court’s determination that the spring is tributary in nature, and in such cases we do not second guess trial courts. I agree with the rule, but oh reexamination of the question presented, I do not agree with its application here.
In the instant case the petitioner calls our attention to the fact that the City’s hydrologist witness Hallenbeck, whose testimony both the trial court and we relied on, only said that he had examined the ranch and spring involved in a “cursory fashion” and that the waters from the spring (which admittedly did not flow naturally on the surface at all) would “probably reach Coal Creek,” and he “assumes that the water flows generally in the direction of Coal Creek,” whereas the geologist witness Walter, called by Petitioner, had been a practicing geologist since 1920 with wide experience who, though he had spent about the same amount of time on this particular examination as Hallenbeck, also previously had studied the area and terrain for approximately three months total time prior thereto. (Emphasis added.) He testified without qualification that the waters could not reach Coal Creek. Walter’s specific testimony in this regard was:
“* * * I examined the said spring and found the water coming through a crevice in the granite, basement rocks, flowing approximately five gallons per minute, and this fissure extending along a fault zone, turning north 70 east and dipping at an almost vertical angle of 85 degrees.”
He then testified that a hole had been dug to a depth of about 4% feet to expose the spring, with the last 1 % feet being in granite. In answer to the question *482as to what would have happened if the spring had not been dug, he testified:
“* * * with the pressure it had, not rising to the top of the granite, probably it would be just a small sunken swamp, no water whatsoever rising to the surface, which would drain along the spring which was north 10 east along fault fissures.”
Then in answer to the question: “'Now, Mr. Walter, had that spring not been dug out, would it have ever reached Coal Creek?” he replied:
“As surface flow, no. As the surrounding topography there before excavation shows, it was a depression with an 8-foot high bank topography all the way around above where the water is coming out of the spring at the present time, and the way it was at that time it would be enough to hold the water, I mean confined in those fissures along the fault zone, turning in that direction (indicating), which would take it out northeast .somewhere. It would be underground flow, not surface flow.”
And to the question “And the flow, had it gone underground, would it have ever reached Coal Creek?” he replied: “No, it would have been intercepted by a fault line or impermeable beds.” He next testified that those beds were approximately 6000 feet thick.
The undisputed fact also is that the draw in question, below the spring, widened out so there is no creek channel as such before the slope reaches Coal Creek.
Walter’s testimony is buttressed by official U.S. Government Department of the Interior Geological Survey Map N 3952. 5-W 10515/7.5 dated 1942 for the “Eldorado Springs, Colo.” quadrangle upon which he had drawn the fault line. The line shows a crossing of the surface drainage area in question. The printed map itself shows the drainage basin, which is some distance below the spring, to have an intermittent flow of water as a natural surface drainage area.
*483Mr. Walter’s conclusion based upon his study of the terrain, that there is no evidence that this spring’s waters ever reached Coal Creek, was concurred in by witness Watson who was also a civil engineer and surveyor who had examined the property.
In addition, it is a known geological fact, of which I believe we should take judicial notice, that structures do exist on the earth’s surface that at times trap surface or spring waters and effectively prevent them from being tributary to any further outward flow. On a grand scale, the Caspian, Saltón and Dead Seas are in that category and obviously smaller similar geologic structures and even pockets exist for various reasons including blockage caused by faulting in the earth’s surface. It is a well known fact that not all earth-held waters percolate through aquifers. Here the evidence is that this was water allowed to escape from its granite prison fissure only after the owner of the land removed the overburden to release the weight upon it. C.R.S. 1963, 148-2-2 expressly provides that the owner of land upon which a spring, such as this, arises has the prior right thereto. — I would apply that statute here.
With the material evidence in the posture as here presented, where the trial court has relied at best on a probability suggested by one expert who is not a geologist, as opposed to the unqualified opposite propounded by a different expert who is a well qualified geologist whose conclusion is supported by a third expert, I believe that, as a matter of law, the trial court was in error. See Vanadium Corp. v. Sargent, 134 Colo. 555, 307 P.2d 454 (1957) to the effect that “opinion must fall before the actual fact” where it is in conflict with the physical facts. I would, therefore, reverse and direct the trial court to enter an amended decree awarding the Ransons the entire use of and first priority to the spring waters in question.
*484Mr. Justice Day, formerly concurring, states that he joins in this dissent.
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