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e . re i, Page 2 ute Indians were left with a large contiguous block. The checker board pattern creates, of course, very complex jurisdictional problerrs for the state of Colorado as well as the Indians, The first claill'S for water from streams which c:ross the reservation occurred in approximately 1908 in the Morrison Consolidated Ditch case on the Pine River. This resulted in several years of litigation. The Southern ute Indian Tribe was granted the Nwnber One priority for 213 c. f. s. from the Pine River by Federal Court in 1932. In late sUll1lller the Pine River averages less than 150 c. f. s, As a consequence, the early non-Indian settlers who laid claim to the water and developed lands would be without a supply once the Indians began to use their senior rights. In omer to solve this problem, Vallecito Reservoir was built as a federal reclamation project with ample storage to meet the needs of both Indians and non-Indians. This project was completed in the early 1940' s. The Southern ute Tribe presently irrigates approximately 13,000 acres and non-Indians irrigate approximately 45,000 acres of land in the Pine River Valley. Although the Southern ute Indian Tribe was allocated water and a means to use it by 1950, the ute Mountain utes were not, In fact, in the 1940' s, the federal government built Jackson Gulch Reservoir on the Mancos River, the primary stream through the ute Mountain Ute reservation, and no allowances were made for Indian water, The town of Towaoc, which is the headquarters for the Ute Mountain Reservation, did not even have a potable domestic supply until this year. Since the well-established Winters Doctrine gives Indians water to meet the needs of the reservation, the ute Indian Tribes filed in 1972 in Federal Court seeking to adjudicate their claill'S on the streams in Southwestern Colorado. The state of Colorado entered. the case and argued successfully that 033~ .,