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Show ARKANSAS RIVER LITIGATION 513 August 27, 1910, United States Irrigating Company sued Graham Ditoh Co. and others holding Colorado priorities, in the United States District Court for Colorado, to obtain an adjudication of priorities as between Kansas users and Colorado users. The Finney County Asso- ciation was denied leave to intervene. Evidence was taken, but the suit was settled by a contract of February 19,1916. By this settlement, the Colorado defendants agreed to recognize priorities as of August 27, 1910, for all the Kansas ditches in Finney County except the Farmers' Ditch; not to apply for, or claim, priorities for storage purposes on the Purgatoire Biver, a tributary of the Arkansas, or below the mouth of the Purgatoire, of a date earlier than August 27, 1910; and to pay the costs of suit and an additional sum to the Kansas interests. The Kansas ditches agreed to accept the priority date of August 27, 1910, and the quantities of water specified in the contract, as a definition and determination of their rights. The defendants complied with the terms of the contract. The Finney County Association declined to become a party to the contract and, on November 27,1916, brought suit in the United States District Court for Colorado against the same defendants for relief like that sought in the United States Irrigating Company's suit. January 29, 1923, the Finney County Association brought a second suit in the same court against other Colorado defendants for similar relief. January 24,1928, Colorado filed the present bill against Kansas and the Finney County Association. After formal recitals, the bill refers to our earlier decision, states that, in reliance upon it, money has been spent in the improvement of the irrigation systems in Colorado, recites the prior and the pending private litigation against Colorado appropriators, alleges that the establishment of an interstate priority schedule sought in the pending suits would disrupt and destroy Colorado's administration of the waters of the Arkansas basin and result in conflict of state authority, asserts that no proper settlement of the relative rights of the States can be obtained in suits by Kansas appropriators against Colorado appropriators, outlines other injury to Colorado threatened by prose- cution of the pending cases to judgment, and prays that the Finney County Association be enjoined from further pressing those suits, that Kansas and her citizens be enjoined from litigating, or attempting to litigate, the relative rights of the two States and their citizens to the waters of the river on claims similar to those made by the Associa- tion in its pending suits, and that the rights of Colorado and her citizens as determined by the judgment m Kansas v. Colorado be protected. Kansas' answer admits some allegations of the bill and denies others, sets forth her alleged rights in the waters of the river, recites appropri- ations by Kansas residents and citizens, diversions by Colorado citizens under appropriations junior in time and inferior in right to those made in Kansas, and asserts that, since the filing of the complaint in Kansas v. Colorado, Colorado users have largely increased their appropria- tions and diversions, and threaten further to increase them, to the injury of Kansas users. She prays that the court protect and quiet her rights and those of her citizens and residents, including the Finney County Association, to their appropriations, that the rights of her citizens and residents to divert water from the river for irrigation be |