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<br />001050 <br /> <br />is a usufruotuary right, and it would be absurd to suppose that water <br />oould be used for irrigation by permanently storing it in a reservoir. <br />And so, when we say that water is stored, or ~emporarily stored for <br />agrioultural purposes, it means the same thing. The effeot of this is <br />that the plaintiff is entitled to have water distributed to it for its <br />immediate needs aooording to its priorities for direot irrigation, but <br />it oannot olaim storage ril!;hts thereunder by using different words for <br />the sflJlle thing. As to eoonomioal methods, whioh plaintiff says it has <br />employed, the answer is that eoonomy in the use of water is COJ1Jl1l8.!lded by <br />law; waste is prosoribed; plaintiff has, therefor~, done only that which <br />the la,( enjoins upon it, but to sa.y that a user has not wasted water does <br />not mean that he oan store it for future use when he has appropriated it <br />and got a deoree only for direot irrigation. To so hold would violate <br />the above deoisions, and would not only tend to undermine water deorees, <br />but also to unlawfully extend or enlarge plaintiff's appropriation for <br />direot irrigation, to the detriment of junior appropriators. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />(5) 2. The public officials charged with the distribution of water <br />must distribute it aocording to the deorees therefor. Sec. 1762, C. L. <br />1921; Gunnison County v. Hider, 47 Colo. i.J4" 445, 107 Pao. 1068; Comstock <br />v. Larimer and Held Res. Co., 58 Colo. 186, 201, 145 Pao. 700, Ann. Cas. <br />1916 ~, 416; San Luis Valley Irrigation District v. Carr, 79 Colo. ,40, <br />,42, 245 Pac. 705. This principle has law and order for its foundation, <br />and is reoognized by statute and repeated adjudica.tions. Obviously, the <br />water connnissioner oan and must distribute water for direct irrigation <br />according to the direct irrigation deorees; and water for storage in <br />aocordance with the reservcir decrees, when not required for direct irri- <br />gation. The 130mplaint or s6130nd amended oomplaint and anendJnent thereto <br />do not show that either the water coIl1llli.ssioner or the state engineer have <br />failed in their duty. The plain purpose of plaintiff's bill of oomplaint <br />and flJIlendments is to aoquire storage rights by viri;ue of direct irrigation <br />decrees, which it is not permitted to do. The demurrer was, therefore, <br />rightly sustained. <br /> <br />(6) ,. The oomplaint as amended makes particular referenoe to <br />plaintiff's syE!tem of reservoirs. known as the l:elch reservOirs, work <br />on whioh. it is alleged, was commenoed and prosecuted with diligenoe to <br />completion, and water used therefrom in conneotion with the plaintiff's. <br />decreed ditohes, prior to the building of the defendant oompany's rese~ <br />voirs. It is oonoeded that the severa.l reservoir claims of the plaintiff <br />a.nd the defendant oompany are the sane as those heretofore litigated and <br />reported at length in the 60th Colorado Reports in the oase of Greeley &: <br />Loveland Irrigation Co. v. Huppe, supra. and which came to this court for <br />the second time in Greeley &: Loveland Irr. Co. v. Handy Ditch Co., 77 <br />Colo. 487, 240 Pac. 270. Those cases indicate the seniority of the present <br />defendant company's reservoir rights over the reservoir claims of plaintiff. <br />They speak for themselves. and extensive cOllllllBnt on them Would be idle <br />repetition. They are determinative of the relative rank of the parties' <br />respective reservoir claims. To grant the prayer of plaintiff's compla.int <br />as amended would accomplish a revision of such reservoir decrees by indirect- <br />ion. but this is impossible to do, any more than by direction. <br /> <br />..,- <br />