Then the case went to court when suits from many landowners were filed by attorney Kenneth G. Speir of Harvey County. On July 9, 1953, L.C. Collins, a tract owner, intervened and filed a motion to vacate the appointment. The motion was finally overruled on September 30 and the appraisal work of the commissioners began. On November 2, 1953 Collins again filed, this time a demurrer to halt the commission from acting, and began an original suit in the Kansas Supreme Court, seeking a writ of mandamus to stop the condemnation commissioners and Wichita from proceeding. Following an extension, the city presented arguments on December 2, followed by a decision on January 6, 1954, in favor of the city, dismissing the mandamus action.

Collins subsequently returned to the condemnation action in the Sedgwick County District Court. He filed a complaint on February 3, 1954, claiming the proceedings were illegal because, 1) the descriptions of the pipelines and appurtenances to be installed were not complete; 2) since the water traveling through the pipe would be delivered by the Wichita Water Company, the condemnation of the pipeline rights-of-way was for private benefit rather than for an authorized public purpose; 3) it was premature to obtain the condemnations since the city did not have legal access to the quantity of water warranting a second pipeline.

With the issues joined, the case went to trial on March 22, 1954, concluding the following day, with the judgment for the city. A motion for a new trial was overturned on April 1, and on April 6 the Kansas Supreme Court denied an order staying the proceeding. Finally, on May 27 this appeal was dismissed. Nearly a year in delays had resulted from Collins's action.

During this period of time, the city was becoming desperate. Howse said later, "In 1954 our water situation was described as critical and desperate. It was in such short supply that drinking and sanitary facilities were impaired on several occasions and it was necessary to close large segments of local industry. The use of water in fighting a single large fire exhausted pressure in water mains and exposed the entire city to major disaster. The mayor declared a public emergency and used the police and fire departments to enforce a 50 percent reduction in water consumption." (Howse, 1962).

The peak demand for water in 1954 was 62 million gallons a day (mgd). Seventy million, equal to the total water supply available to Wichita from all its sources, was projected to be the demand in 1955. Other factors complicated the issue. Local and emergency sources could not sustain their yields of 40 mgd of poor quality water, dropping to ten million after 24 hours. The 30 mgd from the Equus Beds depended on the 48-inch pipeline, which during its first 14 years had suffered 45 breaks, each cutting off the supply for 24 to 48 hours. Finally, the total reserve capacity was only 16 mgd, less than 25 percent of that required. "It was obvious, therefore, that the municipality was in a dangerous position, even under the most ideal conditions," Howse wrote. With this near-catastrophic situation, the city was unable to expand its ground water supply because of "a volume and variety of legal harassment and litigation without precedent in the history of Kansas" from the landowners in the well field area. (Howse, 1962).

On May 20, 1954, after having been asked to respond during 1953, the city formally requested the Bureau of Reclamation to proceed with the investigation into the feasibility of obtaining a water supply from the Ninnescah River, while the city continued its attempt to implement its program. After Collins's legal actions failed, however, another problem developed. Black and Veatch advised the condemnation commissioners that the descriptions of the rights-of-way on which the proceedings were based were in error. The engineers had designated the proper location, but the legal descriptions were at a significant variance.

As a result, the entire proceedings were dismissed and a new process undertaken. The City Commission adopted a new initiating resolution on August 17, 1954, with corrected descriptions filed on August 24, which was approved by ordinance September 8. The same condemnation commissioners were obtained and, following a ten-day legal notice of time and place of meeting, they met on September 27, and a repeat of awards was approved on September 28, 1954. But it was not nearly over. The state courts had been tried, and now it was time for the federal courts. Collins, joined by owners of three other tracts, filed an action on October 20, in the U.S. District Court on the grounds that the notice provision of the Kansas Statutes, which regulated the proceedings, were unconstitutional for lack of due process required by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After an opinion on the jurisdiction 6f the case, it went to trial in Wichita, with the decision favoring the city on March 23, 1955. An appeal was made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit at Denver, Colorado, on April 14, 1955, followed by a restraining order halting pipeline construction on April 18. The case was submitted on May 23, and the lower court's decision, supporting the city, was affirmed on August 4, 1955. A petition for rehearing, temporary restraining order, and a petition for certiorari all followed with the first denial on August 30, the second dissolved on September 8, and the final step, to the U.S. Supreme Court, denied on November 7, 1955. The Tenth Circuit Court mandate was filed in the U.S. District Court in favor of the city on November 17, 1955.

Soon after, however, owners of two other tracts initiated identical suits against the city in U.S. District Court in Topeka, in January, 1956. Following the same pattern, decisions favoring Wichita were affirmed on December 6, 1956.

With these positive legal sanctions, another factor intervened. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on December 10, 1956, in a case not involving Wichita, that a condemnation notice given by Hutchinson under the same statute was unconstitutional. As a result, on December 18 the Court of Appeals reversed its decision of the 6th and instructed the lower court to enter judgments for the landowners. The particular statute involved had been repealed in 1955, so the city returned to court on January 6, 1957, claiming that the new statute conformed to the Supreme Court rulings requiring 15 day publication notice and notice by mail.

After other court actions, following the new statute, the city reappraised the properties, and the condemnation commissioners' reports were filed in April of 1957, following a number of other suits. After many different attempts, the last of some twenty separate appeals from the condemnation awards was finally disposed of in 1959 by trial and settlement.

Law suits were not the only type of harassment attempted, as pipeline and well crews for the city were threatened, shot at, or otherwise interfered with by protesting groups. In addition, numerous cases of vandalism occurred during installation, delaying work still further. Throughout this period, work continued sporadically, and other action was taken to try to alleviate the crisis before the projects were finished.

While all of this was going on, similar suits were being filed in Harvey, McPherson, and Shawnee counties after the city approved pipeline rights-of-way descriptions in those counties on November 22, 1955, and filed the report in the District Court on January 10, 1956. After many different decisions and appeals from land owners, the Supreme Court upheld a decision favoring the city on July 3, 1957.

The legal issues involved in the case were very complex, but much of the effort surrounded the entire topic of the city using water from the Equus Beds, and the constitutionality of the 1945 Kansas Water Appropriations Act. Prior to the act, decisions on water usage were based on English common law that "ownership of water runs with the land" and on regulated water usage. (Howse, 1962). The act, however, was passed as a regulatory measure to control both surface and ground waters, in a manner similar to that used in 17 western states at the time.

Ownership of the land was distinct from the right to water, as the legislature declared, "All water within the state of Kansas is hereby