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Show METHODS OF APPROPRIATING WATER OF WATERCOURSES 301 for 8 years during which the newly created Board of Control faced enormous problems in administering the statute. One such problem was an effort "to discredit the board before its labors began, by an appeal to the prejudice and selfishness of the older appropriators" in an area "where irrigators were already at war with each other."403 From the position of Wyoming State Engineer, Mead went to the United States Department of Agriculture, where he was in charge of irrigation investigations in the Office of Experiment Stations. In this capacity, he directed the California and Utah studies and preparation of the reports which are referred to repeatedly under the preceding topic "Inadequacies of the Preadministration Procedures." (4) Other States. Neighboring Nebraska, into which the vitally important North Platte River flows from Wyoming, followed the Wyoming system closely in 1895. Variations were adopted by Idaho and Utah in 1903; Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1905; Oregon in 1909; Texas in 1913; California in 1914; Kansas and Washington in 1917; Arizona in 1919; and Alaska in 1966.404 The threefold State administrative systems pertaining to watercourses.- Hand in hand with the changeover from nonsupervision to State control of new appropriations of water went the installation of statutory procedures for adjudication of water rights and for control over distribution of water to those holding rights to its use. The Wyoming plan comprised this threefold arrangement. Not only did it borrow the ideas of special adjudication and administrative distribution of water from Colorado-although infusing into the adjudication process a strong administration component. It also produced for the first time an effective administrative control over making new appropria- tions, and coordinated it with adjudication and distribution under an administrative hierachy with a constitutional Board of Control at its summit. Dr. Mead's proposal, the essence of which was put into successful operation, was predominantly administrative. It was initiated at a time when the fields of administrative law and practice in the United States were in their early stages. This was a bold venture, of major significance in the water economy of the West. The adjudication and water distribution facets of the complex whole of water administration are discussed in chapters 8 and 9, whereas the instant topic concerns appropriation procedures. However, before going into detail on matters of acquiring water rights, it is desirable at this point to emphasize the extent to which the legislatures of the several States have embraced 403Id. at pp. 252-259. 404Nebr. Law 1895, ch. 69; Idaho Laws 1903, p. 223; Utah Laws 1903, ch. 100; Nev. Laws 1905, ch. 46; N. Mex. Laws 1905, chs. 102 and 104; N. Dak. Laws 1905, ch. 34; S. Dak. Laws 1905, ch. 132; Terr. Okla. Laws 1905, ch. 21;Oreg. Laws 1909,ch. 216; Tex. Laws 1913, ch. 171; Cal. Stat. 1913, ch. 586; Kans. Laws 1917, ch. 172; Wash. Laws 1917, ch. 117; Ariz. Laws 1919, ch. 164; Alaska Stat. 1966, ch. 50. |