BOARD01106

• Board Meeting Date: 2/3/1962
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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MR. COLEMAN:

I am ~-~~oleman representing the
upper end of Saguache County, representing
Saguache Creek, Crestone Creek, all the
creeks that come down on the east side of
the mountain besides La Garita and other
creeks that flow directly into the basin
or into the lakes.

I want to talk about just two things.
One is setting a precedent and the other
is beneficial users. I am very much
concerned about the attaching of under-
ground water to our surface water. It's
not being done in Colorado yet but just
as soon as we pump this underground water
into the surface water, I am sure that we
are attaching our underground water to
our surface rights and that a precedent
will be set, gentlemen, when you start
this pumping.

~

While we are pumping, not only from
this area which has been proposed, I
know some swamp area round Del Norte,
around Antonito and around San Luis, around
La Jara there are good swamp areas where
we can also lower the water table there,
gentlemen, and have good, pure, sweet water.
There is nothing wrong with that under
the proposal. That is a precedent I don't
want to set.

The gentleman on the Water Board
has already asked the question and they
have answered on who pays for th is.
I know who pays for it, you and me and
all of us pay for it. I don't care what
they say about no return. That comes
out of your pocket here and we folks in
the Closed Basin, we are getting it
through the nose twice.

Now I want to talk about the fallacy
of beneficial use. Who determines
beneficial use? I have been to several
of these meetings and they have told me
this water is not being used beneficially
and when water is not being used beneficially,

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