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Show Costly Court Action Faces Hundreds Of Utah Water Users Utah water users hundreds of them may lose their water rights through inability to finance costly court action, which would be necessary should a recent ruling of the state supreme court be' reversed, according to representation repre-sentation at a meeting of the Utah Water Storage commission this week. The ruling referred to directed the state engineer to make a determination de-termination of water rights of the Jordan river, Utah lake and their tributaries. It was handed down in a case brought by Salt Lake City and several irrigation companies of Salt Lake county against more than 3,000 defendants, defend-ants, principally in Utah county. The Third district court, where the case was instigated, was directed di-rected to accept these determinations determin-ations unless they were protested. This would relieve individual water wa-ter users of the necessity of financing fin-ancing investigations and court procedure necessary to establish proof of their rights. The case was the largest water suit ever brought in Utah. The Spanish Fork West Field Irrigation Irriga-tion company and other water users, defendants in the original suit, which sought to bring about adjudication of the waters involved, in-volved, asked the supreme court to prohibit the district court from going ahead with the case. Numerous inquiries, both written writ-ten and verbal, have been directed direct-ed to trie state engineer seeking information on the probable ef-( ef-( Continued on page six) May Lose Wafer Rights (Continued from first page) feet, should the higher court decision de-cision be reversed. Plaintiffs in the original suit have petitioned for a rehearing of the case. The court's decision upheld a law passed in 1933 and amended in 1939, which required the court to proceed with a determination of rights with the help 0f the state engineer and not otherwise unless that official failed to act It was pointed out in the meet ing that the effect of a reversal of the decision would be felt not only by users of Utah lake' and Jordan river, but by users from many sources in the state where decrees have not been made. Undecreed streams are found in nearly every county of the state. Some of them are: Ferron creek, Emery and Sanpete counties; coun-ties; Pinto creek, Washington county; Upper Bear river, Sum-mit Sum-mit and Rich counties; Henrys Fork and Birch creek, Summit and Daggett counties, and the state's underground water basins principally those of Beaver Tooele and Iron counties. The future settlement of water rights of all" these streams and basins depend upon this decision, members of the commission said! The state engineer's determination determina-tion of rights on the Weber river, which is comparable in size to that proposed for Utah lake and Jordan river, resulted in a decree almost void of the usual legalities. legali-ties. The approximate cost wai $9,000. It is claimed that a least that amount has been spent by each of the principals of the Utah lake suit. Other decrees including Sevier river, Beaver river, Santa Clara creek. Virgin river, and many others have been decreed at a minimum of cost to the water users through a state engineer's determination. The supreme court decision Is one of the greatest ever made affecting af-fecting water users of Utah, members mem-bers of the commission agreed. Water users affected by the decision de-cision should provide legal representation repre-sentation before the supreme court, they concluded. |