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<br />APPENDIX B <br /> <br />'I <br /> <br />" <br /> <br />8. JUSTIFICATION AND EXPLANATION AS TO WHY THE ANIMAS-LA PLATA <br />PROJECT IS CONSIDERED TO BE OF NATIONAL URGENCY <br /> <br />The Animas-La Plata Project together with the adjacent Dolores Pro- <br />ject~Q~ld solve serious social and economic probl~ms of regional <br />significance relating to the establishment of Indian water rights <br />and could establish a precedence that would be instrumental in <br />solving similar problems nationally. <br /> <br />"1' <br /> <br />The Justice Department has filed Civil Action No. C-4497 in the United <br />States District Court for the District of Colorado in which the United <br />States seeks to have the water rights of the Ute Mountain Ute and <br />Southern Ute Indian Tribes established in the San Juan River Basin <br />in Southwestern Colorado. Although these claims have not as yet <br />been defined in amount, preliminary inventories indicate that the <br />Tribes own in excess of 50,000 acres of arable land and vast quanti- <br />ties of coal. Water will be needed to develop these resources. <br /> <br />~; <br /> <br />Because of the legal precedents established by the United States <br />Supreme Court in Winters vs. United States, 207 U.S. 564, (1908) and <br />Arizona vs. California, 343 U.S. 546 (1963), it is expected that the <br />water rights claimed by the Indian Tribes will receive a priority <br />date as of 1868 when their Reservations we~eestablished. This date <br />would proceed and be senior to any of the water rights now using <br />Colorado River water in Colorado. <br /> <br />~.~ i <br /> <br />The Town of Mancos, population 1200, and the surrounding Mancos <br />Reclamation Project with an irrigated agricultural area of about <br />10,000 acres will be affected most seriously by these pending water <br />rights. The Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe has potentially irrigatable <br />lands located downstream from Mancos that are several times larger in <br />area than those of the area irrigated by the Mancos Project. If the <br />Tribe receives a No. 1 priority water right for their lands and builds <br />facilities to put the right to beneficial use, there will be essenti- <br />ally no water left for the community of Mancos. The entire financial <br />economy of the area could be lost. <br /> <br />;.. <br />~'.: <br />~.~ <br />!~, <br />,~: <br /> <br />. .~ <br /> <br />-16- <br />