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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />SECTIONFOUR <br /> <br />Water Rights <br /> <br />ditches at any time during the irrigation season. If, and when, the irrigation pool in Trinidad <br />Reservoir is empty during the irrigation season, the ditches can divert available water from the <br />Purgatoire River under their own individual priorities. Table 4-1 of this Report sets out the <br />amount of water delivered to the Company by the District under the two contracts for the period <br />1982 to 1998, based on the District's records. <br /> <br />Under the Trinidad Project Operating Criteria, space in Trinidad Reservoir is reserved for storage <br />of water for use exclusively on lands irrigated from Company facilities. Under these provisions, <br />the District is required to reserve up to 1,200 acre-feet of water in advance of the irrigation <br />season each year for exclusive use on Company lands. In addition, the Company can carry over <br />water in this account up to a maximum storage amount of6,000 acre-feet at anyone time. This <br />exclusive right is referred to as the Model Account in Trinidad Reservoir. As described below, <br />500 acre-feet per year of this right has been conveyed to the City of Trinidad. The water in the <br />Model Account is included in the amount of water allocated to the Company by the District in <br />the spring of each year described above. The Model Account water is primarily useful to the <br />Company in particularly low water years when Trinidad Reservoir has little water in storage. <br /> <br />A portion of the Company's rights under the two District contracts, and other water rights, were <br />conveyed to the City of Trinidad in 1981 pursuant to a settlement ofa dispute among Trinidad, <br />John T. Oxley, and the Company. Pursuant to a Separation Agreement dated August 1, 1981, <br />between Trinidad and the Company, the Company conveyed the following rights to Trinidad: <br /> <br />1. 2.0 cfs of the Leitensdorfer Ditch, adjudicated by decree dated August 10, 1903, <br />priority date March 20, 1862, Appropriation Priority No.5, in Water District No. 19, <br />from the Purgatoire River, for irrigation purposes. <br /> <br />2. 242 shares in the Johns Flood Ditch Company. <br /> <br />3. The prior right to 500 acre-feet per year out of the first 1,200 acre-feet of water stored <br />or storable in the Model Account in Trinidad Reservoir described above. <br /> <br />4. The right to the water allocable to 373.7 acres ofland jrrigable under the contract <br />between the Company and the District regarding the Model water rights. <br /> <br />5. Up to 1,200 acre-feet of water stored in the Model Account of the Company's <br />entitlement to water from the Trinidad Project in critically dry years for use as an <br />emergency drought water supply. <br /> <br />In addition to the transaction with Trinidad, the Company completed a transaction with River <br />Canyon Ranch, Inc., in 1999 in which the Company transferred to River Canyon the right to <br />receive water for irrigation of 50 acres under the Company's District contracts. This water, in <br />the future, will be delivered to River Canyon's lands under the Lewelling & McCormick Ditch. <br />In return for the transfer of water, River Canyon assigned to the Company its 50 shares of stock <br />in the Company, thus eliminating River Canyon as a Company shareholder. <br /> <br />The Company has not performed any studies of the historical consumptive use of water under the <br />Company's water rights. However, Trinidad currently has pending a change of water right <br />application that seeks to change the use of the Model water rights from irrigation to municipal <br />use, Case No. 88CW61, Water Division No.2. W.W. Wheeler and Associates, Inc. performed <br />an engineering study in support of Trinidad's change application, revised through December <br />1992. This engineering study estimates that the ditch losses between the Purgatoire River <br />headgate and the farms under the Company's ditch system is 25%, and that the farm efficiency <br /> <br />URS Greiner Woodward Clyde <br /> <br />6800044333.00fR2.doc 1/31100(3:18 PM)/PROJECTS 4-2 <br />