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Show ELEMENTS OF THE APPROPRIATIVE RIGHT 5 51 or economically as by group enterprise, if at all. The purpose is the same whether the organization is an informal group of a few neighboring farmers or is a multiple-purpose project covering a great area of land. Irrigation organizations of various types may acquire, hold, and exercise appropriative rights for the purpose of providing water for land which they were organized to serve. Such water rights as they acquire by appropriation, purchase, or otherwise are held-whether only formally or in substance-in trust for the performance of their several functions. Questions regarding actual ownership of water rights pertaining to water served by organizations will be revealed as the discussion progresses. In the accompanying footnote is a list of published reports pertaining to water supply organizations in the West written by the author over a 30-year period.569 Comments under this subtopic are based largely on these studies as well as on supplementary sources. By classification according to the organizational complexity of the undertaking, these water appropriating enterprises are: (1) Individual, for the service of a single farm, or a group of farms operated by the appropriator and served through a common diversion and ditch. (2) Unincorporated group of appropriators. Such associations result from the physical and financial advantages to be gained by a common water diversion and distribution system for the service of a group of neighboring farms. They may be operated under either verbal or written agreements. Some of the larger ones are united under articles of association which in content, though not in legal effect, resemble formal articles of incorporation. Although sometimes referred to as "partnership" enterprises, this designation is misleading, for in legal contemplation these associations are coownerships, not partnerships. In appropriating water and making it physically available to their lands, and generally in doing things respecting their water system in which an individual may lawfully engage, members of an unincorporated association may take action jointly. S69Hutchins, Wells A.: "Irrigation District Operation and Finance," U. S. Dept. Agr. Bui. 1177 (1923); "Mutual Irrigation Companies in Utah," Utah Agr. Expt. Sta. Bui. 199 (1927); "The Community Acequia: Its Origin and Development," 31 Southwestern Historical Quarterly 261 (1928); "Community Acequias or Ditches in New Mexico," State Eng. N. Mex. 8th Bien. Rep., 1926-1928, 227 (1928); "Mutual Irrigation Companies," U. S. Dept. Agr. Tech. Bui. 82 (1929); "Financial Settlements of Defaulting Irrigation Enterprises," U. S. Dept. Agr. Cir. 72 (1929); "Commercial Irrigation Companies," U.S. Dept. Agr. Tech. Bui. 177 (1930); "Summary of Irrigation-District Statutes of Western States," U. S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Pub. 103 (1931); "Irrigation Districts, Their Organization, Operation and Financing," U. S. Dept. Agr. Tech. Bui. 254 (1931); "Organization and Operation of Cooperative Irrigation Companies," U. S. Farm Credit Admin., Coop. Div. Cir. C-102 (1936); "Mutual Irrigation Companies in California and Utah," U. S. Farm Credit Admin., Coop. Div. Bui. 8 (1936); with Selby, H. E., and Voelker, Stanley W., "Irrigation-Enterprise Organizations," U. S. Dept Agr. Cir. 934 (1953). |
