OCR Text |
Show Long Water Controversy Finally Comes to Amicable Settlement Barring a few minor protests which remain for settlement, and among them only one for use of river water rights amounting to about six acre-feet acre-feet of water rights, the controversy between the water litigants of the upper up-per and lower Sevier river rights, was brought to a close Saturday with the signing of the various stipulations by the several water users, both on tho i upper and lower parts. The final ; hearing was had before Judge LeRoy Cox, and lasted from Tuesday of last J week until Saturday, and at the con-! elusion, which apparently satisfies all! concerned, Judge Cox gave an expres-! sion of pleasure and he paid a high compliment to the representatives ofi the water companies and to the at-j tomeys, all of whom were active ir. j bringing the long litigation to a close, j For years the various companies hav ' been at war over certain rights, and '.housands upon thousands of dollars have been expended in trying for a settlement. The area involved in the controversy contro-versy just ended, embraces 250,00-1 acres of irrigated lands in Garfield, i Piute, Sevier, Sanpete and Millaid j counties. The stipulation, which mot l with approval of all concerned, was j prepared at Salt Lake and then tak- j j en before Judge Cox, sitting in the hearing at Richfield. ! The plan adopted is to divide the j Sevier into an upper and lower river at the Vermillion dam. The upper users are entitled, during the irrigation irriga-tion season, April 1 to October 1, to the primary flow developing above that point. The lower river users take whatever primary flow develops below the dam. This will come from tributaries and from what is known as "return flow." Water in the river outside the irrigation irri-gation season is, as a general thing, considered as storage water, and available for storage especially in the Piute and the Sevier Bridge dams. Some small rights, not involved in the series of stipulations which have been made along the river, are sti!! to be decided. These hearings cannot open up the main issues in the case, since by far the majority of the users are bound by their stipulation. One of the terms of the stipulation calls for a resurvey of the Sevier Bridge reservoir. Engineers assert that the capacity of that reservoir, originally about 250,000 acre-feet, has leen reduced about 10,000 acre-feet by silt. Another stipulation is that the Leamington, Mclntyre, Dover, West View and Fayette companies will get r-'phts to storage water in return for 10 per cent of their primary or direct flow rights. |