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Show State Engineer's Order Is Pn'ested Following the orders by State Engineer En-gineer I!acon to Water Commissioner Commission-er Mcliride to turn waters from the J'iute Reservoir dam down the Sevier Se-vier river for the benefit of the us- Li'is under the Iljggins decree, a mighty protest has been made by the Piute interests, representing which are Hanvey II. Cluff, attorney attor-ney general, and Will Ray and John Jensen. Commenting on the controversy contro-versy the Salt Lake Tidbune has, the following to say: "The attorneys told Mr. Bacon that in his recent oi'der to Brice McBride, water commissioner on the Sevier system, instructing him to turn down the stream certain water stored stor-ed in the resevoir is carried out, those holding under the Piute reservoir reser-voir might just as well move off. They declared that this action was without legal authority and informed inform-ed him that they would advise their clients to refuse the carrying out of the order. "Under the Hitre-ins deeiw-. those obtaining Water by virtue of it, are entitled to a certain direct flow with no storage rights, while the Piute interests have a storage rig-lit from the river. It is contended by attorneys attor-neys for the Piute interests that the water stored in their reservoir was water above the Higgins and Morse decrees, both of which aire direct flow rights and come under the doctrine doc-trine of beneficial use. They contend con-tend that during the storage months the Piute interests had a right to store water above the amount required re-quired to satisfy the Higgins and Morse decrees, and such water coming com-ing under those decrees as was not being used by the Morse and Higgins Hig-gins users. It is contended further that if the water had not been stored stor-ed it simply would have gone down the stream and either have been Stored in the Sevim- htridm tpspv- voir or been wasted. "Mr. Bacon's letter to Mr. McBride Mc-Bride said: 'If there has been in the river at times since March 1 such daily flow as would satisfy both . these decrees, then the balance goes to later apprropriators, and on days when both rights were fully supplied any surplus wouuld go to the Piute or Sevier bridge reservoirs. If the TTio-o-inc flnvoo virrVifa Viaxra in cnrii days lacked a full supply while storage stor-age in the Piute reservoir was taking tak-ing place, a credit in favor of the Higgins rights would occur. You are hereby instructed to turn down to the Higgins rights any such credits cred-its in their favor as your, daily records rec-ords may show.' "It is the contention of the Piute interests that no Higgins decree water wat-er is in the Piute- reservoir and, therefore, that none should be turned out. The order of the state engineer to lur. lucrsricte reiatea to water which should have gone to the Higgins Hig-gins decree rights on the days it was stored, it was declared. "Mr. Bacon listened to the complaints com-plaints of the attorneys and told them as he had received no instructions instruc-tions from the court to the contrary-he contrary-he could do nothing but distribute the water according to decreed rights or the proposed determination. The attorneys declared they would file court proceedings, if necessary, to preent the turning of water from the Piute reservoir." |