IRRIGATION IN NORTHERN COLORADO. 19 



rate of $3,000 a second-foot, and a part of priority No. 17 was ac- 

 quired by the same company for $2,500 a second- foot. But parts of 

 priorities No. 52 and 66, which were transferred to the North Poudre 

 Canal, cost only $150 a second-foot. Just recently the right of the 

 Mason and Hottel mill race was abandoned to the river on payment 

 of $2,000 per second- foot by the interested canals. 



The holding of direct irrigation water in small farm reservoirs is 

 an accepted, well-established custom, due to the recognized economy 

 of time and water the practice promotes. The extension of this custom 

 to regulator reservoirs for the benefit of the whole stream would have 

 a most beneficial effect, but any extension to large reservoirs of indi- 

 vidual companies raises the question of where the line should be 

 drawn. In permitting the transfer of 26 second- feet of priorities No. 

 52 and No. 66 to the North Poudre Canal the court decreed : 



That petitioner (tlie Nortli Poudre Irrigation Company) may, in times of 

 scarcity of water, and for tlie purpose of making a more economical use of said 

 water, and at times when other water is not being run in its ditch in sufficient 

 quantity, use Halligan Dam and Reservoir, located on the North Fork of the 

 Cache la Poudre, a short distance above headgate of petitioner's ditch, for the 

 purpose of temporarily catching up said water and obtaining a sufficient head, 

 thence to turn the same into the headgate of the said North Fork ditch without 

 injuriously affecting the vested rights of said respondents or other water users 

 in district No. 3. 



In the adjudication of 1882, Warren Lake, which was then hardly 

 more than a fishpond, was given a decree permitting it to draw ap- 

 proximately 15 second-feet of the appropriation of the Larimer 

 County Canal No. 2, but there was no general adjudication of reser- 

 voir rights until a decree was handed down by the district court in 

 1909. By this decree 43 reservoirs were given 57 appropriations on 

 first constructions and enlargements aggregating about 6,000,000,000 

 cubic feet, or 150,000 acre-feet. Because of inaccurate surveys or lack 

 of surveys, there are many inconsistencies in these decrees, and very 

 few of the decreed appropriations agree with the actual capacity of 

 the reservoir as shown by later careful surveys or by measuring the 

 inflow or outflow. Only a few transfers of reservoir rights have been 

 made. When the North Poudre Irrigation Co. disposed of its interest 

 in Douglass Reservoir the appropriation was retained and transferred 

 to Reservoirs No. 5 and No. 6 to permit these reservoirs to fill from 

 the main river through the Poudre Valley Canal. The appropriation 

 of No. 6 in the North Fork was then transferred to Halligan and 

 No. 15 Reservoirs. 



DISTRIBUTION FROM RIVER. 



The Cache la Poudre basin is water district No. 3, and to the water 

 commissioner of the district is delegated the duty of turning the water 

 in the stream to the various canals in accordance with the quality. 



