United States v. Tujunga Water & Power Co.

This action is brought by the United States to secure a decree canceling rights to maintain reservoirs, ditches, tunnels, and conduit lines on public lands comprised within a forest reserve in the county of Los Angeles, state of California. The Act of Congress of March 3, 1891, §§ 18-20 (Comp. St. §§ 4934-4936; 8 Fed. Stats. Ann. pp. 803, 805), authorizes the acquiring of rights of this kind in the public lands by canal and ditch companies, for irrigation purposes, and the same act provides that, where any section of the contemplated *121 work is not completed within five years after location made by the filing of maps, and securing certificates of approval, all rights shall be forfeited as to any section of “said canal, ditch or reservoir, to the extent that the same is not completed at the date of the forfeiture.”

In September, 1901, Samuel Merrills obtained approval of an application accompanied by a map of location covering a contemplated system of water conduits with a great number of storage reservoirs in the Tujunga Canyon. This contemplated system was of many miles in extent. One Wilcox, in 1905, obtained like approval of an application to construct a conduit line and…