BOARD01955

• Board Meeting Date: 3/21/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

Indian water rights, but also a claim for other
r,ights. The lawsuit is presently pending.

federai reserved

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Now I would like to paint a picture to you of the present situation
that we have in the San Juan basin as a result of this litigation.
It is extremely interesting. In 1930, the Justice Department filed
a lawsuit on behalf of the Southern Ute Indians on the Pine River.
This culminated in a decree in 1934 wherein the Southern Ute Indian
tribe was given the number one priority on the Pine River with an
1868 priority date to 213 second feet of water. The non-Indian
water users were immediately faced with the same situation that some
of the non-Indian water users are faced with in the San Juan basin
today. And as a result thereof, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the
Bureau of Reclamation in cooperation constructed the Vallecito Res-
ervoir. Since that time, the Indians are entitled to one-sixth of
the storage rights in Vallecito Reservoir. The storage has enabled
both the Indian and non-Indian water rights to be met out of the?:!
Vallecito Reservoir when there are shortages during the late summer
months. It has worked out very well. It has been administered'b~
the state of Colorado under the state court decrees.ct

On the Florida River when the Lemon Dam was built on the Florida
reclamation project, the Bureau of Reclamation again recognized Indian
water rights and set aside some 2,000 acre-feet out of the Lemon Dam
for irrigation of Indian lands which are located on the Florida Mesa
southwest of Durango.

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Then we move on over to the Mancos River and the Jackson Gulch Res-
ervoir. This reservoir, now the Lemon Reservoir, was constructed in
the late 50's and early 60's and the Mancos came in between the Pine
which was constructed in the late 30's and early 40's and the Mancos
comes in in the early 50's. The Jackson Gulch Reservoir on the
Mancos River constructed as a Bureau of Reclamation project, has a
considerable amount of non-Indian land irrigated in the vicinity of
the community of Mancos, 10,600 acres. The Mancos River courses
then generally through the Ute Mountain Ute reservation and through
a large area of irrigable land owned by the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.
In some manner, the Bureau of Reclamation and the United States
government did not at that time set aside any water rights for the
Ute Mountain Utes out of the Mancos water reclamation project. In
the lawsuit now pending in the Federal District court, the United
States Government is asking, and it is anticipated will receive, an
extensive water right on the Mancos River with a priority date prior
to the non-Indian water rights which are presently being used by the

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