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<br />.. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />to organize a new conservancy district covering all of La Plata County, <br />Colorado. The present La Plata Water Conservancy District will be <br />dissolved if the new district is organized. Efforts are also being <br />made to form a new conservancy district in New Mexico which would <br />include the municipal areas of Aztec, Farmington, Kirtland, etc., in <br />the project area. <br /> <br />Indian and Federal Water Right Problems <br /> <br />In November of 1972, the Justice Department, on behalf of the <br />United States government and the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute <br />Indian tribes of southwestern Colorado filed a civil action in the <br />United States District Court for the District of Colorado (Civil Action <br />No. c-4497), in which suit the United States seeks to have its water <br />rights and the water rights of the Indian tribes established in the San <br />Juan River basin in southwestern Colorado. Although these claims have <br />not as yet been defined in amount, they are known to represent large <br />quantities of water. Because of the legal precedents established by <br />the United States Supreme Court in Winters vs. United States, 207 U. S. <br />564, (1908) and Arizona vs. California, 343 U. S. 546 (1963), it is <br />expected that the water rights claimed by the Indian tribes will receive <br />priority dates as of the establishment of the various reservations, <br />which priority dates will be senior in right to all of the water rights <br />now in use in the San Juan basin. <br /> <br />It appears that the town of Mancos and the surrounding Mancos <br />reclamation project with an irrigated agricultural area of about 10,600 <br />acres will be affected most seriously by these pending water rights. <br />The Ute Mountain Ute Indian tribe has potentially irrigable lands <br />located downstream from ~ancos that are larger in area than most of the <br />area irrigated by the Mancos project. If the tribe receives a first <br />priority water right for its lands and builds facilities to put the right <br />to beneficial use, there will be essentially no water left for the <br />community of Mancos. The entire financial economy of the area could <br />be lost. <br /> <br />Probably the community with the second most serious impact would <br />be Fort Lewis Mesa. This area's economy has already dwindled seriously <br />as a result of the administration of the Colorado-New Mexico Interstate <br />Compact on the La Plata River. During the 1920's there were about <br />20,000 acres of irrigated land on Fort Lewis Mesa that produced good <br />crops. Marvel, the trading community of the area, had a thriving <br />economy with about 15 businesses, including a bank. The irrigated <br />acreage has now decreased to about 3 or 4 thousand acres with only a <br />meager water supply. There is only one small general store in Marvel <br />now. The impact resulting from prior Indian water rights could finish <br />the area's economy. <br /> <br />The Animas-La Plata project provides the only practical solution <br />to the critical social and financial problems that would otherwise <br />develop as a result of the Indian water right claims. It would make <br />about 80,000 acre-feet of water available for the development of land <br />and mineral resources of the two Ute Indian tribes. As the definite <br />plan report for the project is currently being formulated, an effort is <br /> <br />-4- <br />