OCR Text |
Show Indian and non- Indian lands are interspersed. Some of the Indian lands were later acquired by non- Indians. The original Indian lands, however, retained the original priority of their water rights regardless of present ownership. This priority antedates October 3, l86l, the date the reservation was established. The non- Indian settlers acquired secondary water rights under Utah State law by application to the State Engineer. The filing of water right applications began immediately after the opening of the reservation in 1905 and has continued. There are now about kQ ditches and canals diverting from the Duchesne River and its upper tributaries, and about 3*+ ditches diverting from the Strawberry River and its tributaries. By agreements made over the years many of the canals diverting from Duchesne River convey both Indian and non- Indian water. Surface waters available to the Uinta Basin area of the Bonneville Unit include the Duchesne and Strawberry River systems and tributary inflow. The long- term flow of the Duchesne River is 26l, 000 acre- feet per year, and the Strawberry River 35 » 000 acre- feet per year, as measured at Duchesne. Many diversions, including some upstream from the above mentioned gages, divert about 210,000 acre- feet of water from the Duchesne and 1* 1,500 acre- feet from the Strawberry River each year. In addition, the Duchesne Tunnel has diverted 35,^ 00 acre- feet of water to Deer Creek Reservoir and the Strawberry Tunnel has diverted 6l, 000 acre- feet from Strawberry Reservoir for use in the Bonneville Basin. There is considerable reuse of return flows on the system. The outflows to the Colorado River system consist mainly of high spring flood flows and irrigation return flows of low quality and quantity during the summer months. Records of outflow from the Unit area only are not available. A summary of the historic annual flow of several Uinta Basin streams and the average divertible flows at the proposed point of interception by the Strawberry Aqueduct system is in Table B- U. These divertible flows are surplus to existing downstream rights by virtue of storage and exchange provisions of the completed Starvation Reservoir on Strawberry River. ( 2) Future Development of Remaining Surface Water Supplies Without the Bonneville Unit Future development of remaining surface water supplies would be limited primarily to the following: ( a) irregularly 182 |