BOARD00469

• Board Meeting Date: 5/12/1976
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

Ray this. How does the l042 legislation relating to in-house domestic
wells intertwine with the minimum stream flow filings?

MR. MOSES: The State Engineer is under no obligation to grant in-house
fifteen gallon well permits if he thinks the cumulative effect will
adversely affect existing appropriators.. I don't know what Sam's
talking about in numbers, and I can't predict what the State Engineer I
will do. I have fallen on my face several times attempting to. . But
let's say he gets twenty applications for in-house use only wells in
the Junction Creek drainage and the state has got a fifteen-foot
minimum stream flow. It's entirely conceivable to me that the State
Engineer will, say, "No, the cumulative effect of these wells is such
that I am not going to grant them." The problem is that it's discre-
tionary. Every time you put another appropriation on that stream,
whether it's one that can draw any particular.water at that time or not,
it creates greater problems for the State Engineer.

Sam's mention of the National Forest brings up another facet of that
that I hadn't thought about before and it might save this Board an
awful lot of trouble in some of these areas. We are going to have
filings'by the United States in Water Division Seven as a result of the
federal reserved water rights claims for minimum stream flows on the
forests. I suspect they will be made this year. It seems to me that
this Board, once it sees what those filings are, can certainly save
itSelf a lot of problems and headaches by letting the federal government
get those minimum stream flows.instead of this Board going through this
kind of an exercise in those particular areas month after month at
meetings. I throw that out as maybe a way to eliminate some of the
length of some of these meetings.

MR. KROEGER: I don't want to .dominatethis thing, but in the case of
Junction Creek, the lower boundary of the forest is not over three and
a half to four miles from town. This is the only area that can be
developed. So if this flow was instead of to the confluence of the
Animas River - a river that hasn't been greatly over appropriated - an
area that has some extra water, there is really no reason why Junction
Creek should not supply water for more homes. for people. But under this
le~islation, it is - in my opinion - not a question of "maybe he will,"
he s already doing this in other areas within our basin. This is the
thing that I object to, that they're not doing their homework. I think
Duane needs to come to Durango and sit down and go over these things
area by area and we would drop that thing off at the Forest Service line,
as Sam suggests. Others are not that simple. But I just don't think
that we're bein~ asked to do something that's very reasonable. One of
these days they re going to say, '~ou were there, weren't you and you
voted 'yes', didn't you?" And I'm going to say,.''Yes, I voted 'yes,'
and I was duped."

MR. SPARKS: I might say here that everybody thinks he's very reasonable
until his area becomes involved.

I

(Laughter).
MR. STAPLETON: Mr. Kochman has asked to speak.

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