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Show 454 ADJUDICATION OF WATER RIGHTS IN WATERCOURSES engineer or incorporate it with such modifications as the water judge may determine proper after the hearings.55 If no protests are filed, the water judge shall enter a judgment and decree incorporating and confirming the tabulations of the division engineer without modification.56 These tabulation proceedings shall be considered general adjudication proceedings.57 The judgment and decree of the water judge are subject to appellate review except for that part of the judgment or decree which confirms a part of a tabulation with respect to which no protest was filed.58 The Wyoming System The Wyoming system for adjudicating water rights came into being with the attainment of statehood in 1890.59 It thus followed the existing Colorado system in providing a special statutory adjudication procedure, but with a highly important addition-it introduced administrative functioning into this procedure, instead of leaving it all to the courts. This feature-administrative participation in adjudication of water rights-was followed in most of the other Western States. The Wyoming Constitution, which became effective with statehood, directed the legislature to divide the State into four water divisions. It also provided for a State Engineer and for a Board of Control, the Board to be comprised of the State Engineer and the four water Division Superintendents.60 This Board is an administrative agency of the State with quasi-judicial powers,61 its decisions being subject to review by the courts. It is this agency that "adjudicates and determines" rights to the use of streamflow in Wyoming.62 In the original adjudication of a stream the State Engineer makes a hydrographic survey, and the Division Superintendent takes testimony as to s5Id. §§ 148-21-28(2)(b)-(f). 56Id. § 148-21-28(2)(g). The described procedures apply to tabulations to be made by July 1, 1974, and thereafter. Similar procedures are provided for the original tabulations to be made in 1970 [and completed in 1973 (see note 239 infra)], although it is provided that if ob- jections are filed after such original tabulations are filed with the water clerk, "the water judge shall order such notice, conduct such proceedings and enter such orders as he deems appropriate to deal with such protest pending the proceedings in Section 148-21-28," which section pertains to the later (tabulations. Id. § 148-21-27(5). 51Id. § 148-21-28(2)(I). 58Id. § 148-21-28(2)0). 59Wyo. Laws 1890-91, ch. 8. 60 Wyo. Const, art. VIII, § § 2,4, and 5. 61 Farm Inv. Co. v. Carpenter, 9 Wyo. 110, 61 Pac. 258 (1900). 62In the statutes and court decisions of Wyoming, the terms "adjudication" and "determination" are used interchangeably with respect to the functions of the Board of Control in establishing water rights. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 41-165 et seq. (1957); Campbell v. Wyoming Dev. Co., 55 Wyo. 347, 378, 100 Pac. (2d) 124, 102 Pac. (2d) 745 (1940); Laramielrr. & Power Co. v. Grant, 44 Wyo. 392, 414, 13 Pac. (2d) 235 (1932). |