| OCR Text |
Show LARAMIE RIVER LITIGATION 685 matter of importance because some large irrigation works were started in Wyoming between the dates mentioned, were diligently carried to completion, and are entitled to priorities as of the dates when they were started. The Laramie-Poudre project is composed of several units, originally distinct, which underwent many changes before they were brought together in a single project. In its final form the project is intended to divert water by means of a tunnel from the Laramie Eiver into the Poudre watershed, there to unite that water with water taken from the Cache la Poudre River and then to convey the water many miles to the lower part of the Poudre valley, where it is to be used in re- claiming and irrigating a body of land containing 125,000 acres. It is a large and ambitious project whose several parts, as finally brought together, are adjusted to the attainment of that purpose. The parts were separately conceived, each having a purpose of its own. The project now is intended to draw on two independent sources of supply, each in a separate watershed.1 The appropriations are necessarily distinct. Neither adds anything to, nor subtracts anything from, the status of the other. We are concerned with only one of them. The proposed tunnel diversion from the Laramie was conceived as a possibility by Wallace A. Link in 1897 and was explained by him to Abraham I. Akin in the spring of 1902. Later in the year they visited the headwaters of the two streams, looked over the ground, and agreed that Link's idea was a good one, that the undertaking was large and that they were without the means to carry it through. They concluded to promote the project together; and, thinking their chances of success would be improved by it, they also concluded to construct a ditch, known as Upper Hawaii, from the Laramie valley to a connection with an existing ditch, called the Skyline, and to take water through these ditches into the Cache la Poudre valley and there sell it. By this they hope to demonstrate that water was obtainable from that source and to obtain money to be used in promoting their project. The Skyline was a fair-sized ditch leading over a low part of the divide to a branch of the Poudre, and they arranged with its owner for the carriage, on a percentage basis, of water from their ditch when constructed. They also conceived that the ditch could be used advantageously in collecting and carrying water to be sent through the tunnel, if and when the tunnel diversion was effected. In 1902, beginning August 25, they surveyed the line of the Rawah and in Oc- tober of that year filed a statement of claim under it in the State Engineer's office. In the statement they said nothing about a tunnel diversion and made claim only to the amount of water expected to be carried through the Rawah and to the use of certain lakes or natural reservoirs for storage purposes. No work was done on the ditch that year. In 1903 they cleared some of the land over which it was to run, but did no excavating. In 1904 they constructed 6,000 feet of the ditch 1 An engineer who had been connected with the work, and was a witness for the de- fendants, said: "This system has two distinct and independent sources of supply; that from the Laramie River and that from the Poudre River basin and the tributaries of the South Platte, and it was so designed that the Poudre Valley Canal could divert water from the Poudre River and also from the northern tributaries of the Poudre intercepted by the canal and from the tributaries of the South Platte as far east as Crow Creek and inter- cepted by the Canal wherever there was surplus water. We estimated that the amount of water available outside of the Laramie River source would be between 80,000 and 100,000 acre-feet per annum as an average." |
