OCR Text |
Show 446 ADJUDICATION OF WATER RIGHTS IN WATERCOURSES However, in a number of Western States, the courts have indicated that the jurisdiction of the courts to try water rights controversies in ordinary civil suits is not divested by these statutes. (See the later discussion, "Statutory Procedures Generally Not Exclusive.") In an early decision, the Colorado Supreme Court said:7 The object of these irrigation statutes was to settle questions of the relative priorities of the claimants of water for the purposes of irrigation. The decrees rendered thereunder embody in a perma- nent form the evidence of those previously acquired, while the statutes further provided certain regulations for the distribution by the state of the water according to the priorities thus ascertained. Other principal purposes of the statutory procedures usually have included provision for the participation or assistance of a State administrative agency in the adjudication process. Such participation or assistance may include the submission of certain public records, the making of hydrographic surveys, investigations, or reports, or participation in the adjudication of water rights. In a number of States, a State agency makes the statutory adjudication of water rights or makes an initial determination or suggested determination of water rights, which is then filed in court for final adjudication. Among other purposes, such a function may tend to accomplish a centralization of the adjudication process, since only one agency plays a central role in each such adjudication. In the leading case in which the Wyoming statutory procedure for adjudication by an administrative board was assailed and sustained, the Wyoming Supreme Court expressed its approval of the practical advantages of the technical administrative aid to be derived from such a proceeding, thus:8 In the development of the irrigation problem, under the rule of prior appropriation, perplexing questions are continually arising of a technical and practical character. As between an investigation in the courts, and by the board, it would seem that an administrative board, with experience and peculiar knowledge along this particu- lar line, can, in the first instance, solve the questions involved with due regard to private and public interest, conduct the requisite investigation, and make the ascertainment of individual rights, with greater facility, at less expense to interested parties, and with a larger degree of satisfaction to all concerned. The purposes of procedures for State agency assistance in private suits appear to include provisions for the help of a State administrative agency and 44-45, 234 Pac. 524 (1924); Mammoth Canal & Irr. Co. v. Burton, Judge, 70 Utah 239, 256, 259 Pac. 408 (1927). 1 New Mercer Ditch Co. v. Armstrong, 21 Colo. 357, 361,40 Pac. 989 (1895). *FarmInv. Co. v. Carpenter, 9 Wyo. 110,135, 61 Pac. 258 (1900). |