Court finds for Pine River ranchers

A divided state Supreme Court has ruled for several Bayfield-area ditch companies in a water-rights dispute with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. The 4-3 ruling solidified water rights for the King Consolidated Ditch Company and seven others. The companies wanted to make sure their 1930s-era rights are protected against a plan to fill Vallecito Reservoir twice a year in order to maintain winter flows in the river. “This ruling gives certainty and security to farmers and ranchers out there that they can continue diverting,” said Geoff Craig, a lawyer for the ditch companies. The irrigation companies began trying a decade ago to get a judge to declare that the water rights they secured in 1934 apply to stock watering during the winter. Local ranchers were worried that a plan by the tribe and the Colorado Water Conservation Board to maintain a minimum flow in the river during the winter could have curtailed the ranchers’ water use. Water court Judge Gregory Lyman affirmed the ditch companies’ rights in 2009 and disallowed the Southern Ute tribe from intervening in the case, saying the tribe had missed a deadline. The tribe appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments last September...more