31. 



Rights to water in district 6 inid iirior rights in lower districts. 



In 1900 a decree defining the rights of ten reservoirs was handed 

 down. The capacity of each of these is given, the total being 

 174,056,228 cubic feet per second, the dates running from 1869 to 1893. 



Nine years after the adjudication certain ditches brought suit 

 against other ditches in the district in an attempt to have their 

 decrees cut down. It was alleged that the latter had never, up to 

 the time of the decree, used any such amounts of water as were 

 awarded them, but afterwards their capacities were enlarged and 

 the area increased and the excess decreed put to use. The supreme 

 court- held that the decree Avas res adjudicata, nine years having 

 elapsed. '' One of the things determined and settled by the decree 

 is the quantity of water to which the parties thereto are entitled."" 

 No suits have been brought to close the ditches in this district for the 

 benefit of those below. The early rights prior to any in the lower 

 district are sufficient to absorb the ordinary flow of the stream. 



District 5. — District 5 comprises the drainage area of St. Vrain 

 Creek and its tributaries except Boulder and Coal creeks, which are 

 in district 6. This district can receive water from no other source 

 than St. Vrain Creek and its tributaries, and the water from St. 

 Vrain can be used in districts 2, 1, and 64. 



The decree defining rights in this district was rendered in 1882. 

 In estimating the appropriations the referee found the areas actually 

 irrigated by the ditches and the number of inches of water required. 

 The duty of water, as estimated by the referee, varied from 1 cubic 

 foot per second for 4 acres to 1 cubic foot per second for 48 acres. 

 As a result of this method of computing rights many of the ditches 

 were awarded more water than they could carry. The decree made 

 the award in the terms of " customary inches." These inches were 

 not defined, but they have since been reduced to cubic feet per second 



a Boulder and Weld Ditch Co. v. Boulder Ditch Co., 22 Cole, 115. 

 30437— No. 157—05 M 3 



