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<br />~ <br /> <br />D. <br />States. <br /> <br />Non-Indian repayment contract claims against the United <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />While the United States has failed in recent years to honor <br />Congress' 1968 commitment to develop waters for the Ute Indian <br />; Reservations, in earlier years the United States did in fact <br />develop a water resources project utilizing water subject to the <br />Ute Indian Winters rights. This earlier project, the Mancos <br />Project, involved the construction of the Jackson Gulch Reservoir <br />during the late 1940s. Unfortunately, the Mancos River water <br />diverted by.the United States to the Jackson Gulch Reservoir was <br />water which Congress had originally reserved in the 19th century <br />for use on the Ute Indian Reservations. As noted above, the <br />Mancos River diversion to Jackson Gulch Reservoir has created a <br />breach of trust claim against the United States on behalf of the <br />Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe. Significantly, that very same <br />diversion also creates a contract claim on behalf of the current <br />non-Indian water users because they have reimbursed the United <br />States for the cost of the Jackson Gulch Reservoir Project on the <br />basis of a material misrepresentation by the United States <br />inserted into the repayment contracts -- namely, that the Mancos <br />River water was available for delivery to the Jackson Gulch <br />Reservoir by the United States. This breach of contract claim <br />(based on the loss of project water and the dimunition of farm <br />income caused by the Tribes' quantification of their Winters <br />rights claims in litigation undertaken in the absence of the <br />Agreement in Principle) has been estimated recently by an' <br />economist at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Dr. Bernard Anderson, <br />to approximate $60,000,000. <br /> <br />12 <br />