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~,-...t (0 ~) C\! ~....O) c. Garcia water riqhts In the first Colorado adjudication for Water District 24 on June 14. 1889. seven water rights were decreed for diversion from costilla Creek for use in the Garcia area. Claimants of the seven Garcia ditches in the adjudication are shown in attachment 4. Most likely, each individual owned a part of the water right in the proportion that the amount of land owned by him and irrigated by the ditch bore to the total amount of land irrigated by the ditch. At the present time. only four are presently recognized; they are the Acequiacita and the Chalifu, Trujillo. and Garcia Ditches. Three of the original seven--the Acequia Madre and the Manzanares and Madriles Ditches--are presently considered to have been trans- ferred to the headgate of the Cerro Canal. The ditches that were transferred from the Garcia area have earlier appropriation dates than those remaining. In 1890, the united states Freehold Land and Emigration Company filed equity suits in the U. S. Circuit Court for the Dis- trict of Colorado against the claimants of the Acequia Madre and the Manzanares and Madriles Ditches diverting water from costilla Creek and against several ditches diverting from Culebra Creek. The suits charged that the claimants were making use of the waters without the consent of the owners of the Sangre de Cristo Grant, and they asked the court to enjoin further diversions from the streams. In November 1897, the judge dismissed the charges against the claimants. The company appealed the decisions. and the final decrees issued by Judge Moses Hallet in 1900 ruled in favor of the company. Copies of pertinent documents in these cases are included as attachments 5-7. When these cases are considered by themselves. they seem to void or nullify the water rights of the three ditches. Attachment 8 is a copy of a water deed dated December 30. 1908. in which Ferdinand Meyer. who was an original claimant. conveys to Franklin E. Brooks 40 cfs and his interests in the Acequia Madre and the Manzanares, Madriles, and Chalifu Ditches. This deed has led some Garcia residents to believe that Ferdinand Meyer was responsible for their loss of water rights. Actually the water rights conveyed by this deed are difficult to trace. The 40 cfs mentioned was obtained by Meyer from the united States Freehold Land and Emigration Company; it is suspected that it was a New Mexico water right claim that was not recognized in the subsequent New Mexico adjudication. The conveyance associated with the other water rights seem to be "quit claim" in nature when considered with the previously discussed court cases. Sometimes quit claim deeds -8-