| OCR Text |
Show 4 STATE WATER POLICIES The foundation of State control in Nebraska is the declaration that the necessity of water for domestic and irrigation uses in the State is a natural want.8 In Texas, the basis of important water control measures is a constitutional amendment declaring that the conservation and development of all the natural resources of the State, including (but not limited to) the control, storing, preservation, and distribution of its waters for useful purposes and the irrigation and drainage of lands, are public rights and duties, with a mandate to the legislature to pass all laws appropriate thereto.9 An amendment to the constitution of California (1) declares that because of the conditions prevailing in the State, the general welfare requires that its water resources be put to beneficial use to the fullest extent of which they are capable, (2) forbids waste, unreasonable use, and unreasonable methods of use of water, and (3) commands that the conservation of waters be exercised with a view to their reasonable beneficial use in the interest of the people and for the public welfare.10 Some Legislative Statements Declarations of the importance to the public of the use of water are found in some statutes. For example, the Water Code of California repeats the declarations in the constitution noted immediately above, and the South Dakota legislature included them in substantially identical language in the 1955 revision and reenactment of the water law of that State.11 The legislature of Texas enacted the substance of the constitutional amendment referred to above, except as to the mandate to itself to enact appropriate laws.12 Some Judicial Observations Courts have taken notice of constitutional and statutory declarations and have added some of their own. To cite a few examples: -"That domestic use is the most beneficial use for water and that irrigation is the next most beneficial use in the arid western states is a self-evident and well recognized fact regardless of any statute."13 -"We historically know that the lands in the western portion of the state are comparatively in some seasons useless for agricultural purposes unless they are irrigated."14 8Nebr. Const., art. XV, § 4. 9 Tex. Const., art. XVI, § 59a. 10Cal. Const., art. XIV, § 3. "Cal. Water Code § 100 (West 1956); S. Dak. Code § 61.0101 (1939), as reenactedby Laws 1955, ch. 430, now Comp. Laws Ann. § 46-1-4 (1967). The South Dakota statute does not repeat the declarations in the California constitution and California Water Code with respect to riparian rights. 12 Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 7466 (1954). See also W. art. 7472d. 13 Tanner v. Bacon, 103 Utah 494, 508, 136 Pac. (2d) 957 (1943). 14 Tolle v. Correth, 31 Tex. 362, 365, 98 Am. Dec. 540 (1868). |
