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Show WATER FLOWING IN NATURAL STREAM 141 is readily understandable, for the purpose of a constitutional or statutory declaration of public or State ownership is to lay the foundation for State control over the management and use of stream waters, and the principle of public or State ownership is more compatible with State control than would be that of ownership by no one. Wiel, writing in 1911, commented further on the confusion in the early authorities over terms used to designate the status of flowing waters, and stated that whether called "publici juris" or "res communes," "it is now settled that either form of expression means only that the corpus of naturally flowing water is not the subject of private ownership, and is not property in any sense of the word."18 Certainly in the Western States, any distinctions that may exist in concepts of public ownership, State ownership, and ownership by no one, in the waters flowing in natural streams have not been reflected in the laws of these States that govern rights to the use of water, nor in their administration. With full realization that the currently expanding water economy of the West is accompanied by searching reappraisals of water rights doctrines and proposals for changes, it is correct to say that such distinctions have not had practical importance in this area. So far as State control and actual use of these flowing waters is concerned, the significant and essential principle is that private ownership in the corpus of the water does not exist. This positive or negative ownership is subject to private water rights. -The foregoing principle, so well settled in the arid and semiarid regions of the country recognizes, of course, that denial of private ownership in the corpus of flowing stream water does not preclude but, on the contrary, is expressly subject to the existence and protection of valid private rights to capture, possess, and beneficially use the public waters.19 Water in Wyoming, although owned by the State, is held in trust for the use of its people-not indiscriminately, but under public control exercised in the public interest.20 In BWiel,SMpra, note 15, § 699. 'Oldroyd v. McCrea, 65 Utah 142, 151, 235 Pac. 580 (1925). "In a certain limited sense" natural streamflow belongs to the public, but the right to the use thereof is the subject of private property and ownership by riparian owners and appropriators, sub- ject to public and judicial regulation: St. Germain Irrigating Ditch Co. v. Hawthorne Ditch Co., 32 S. Dak. 260, 268, 143 N. W. 124 (1913). 'Lake DeSmet Res. Co. v. Kaufmann, 75 Wyo. 87, 99, 292 Pac. (2d) 482 (1956); Hunziker v. Knowlton, 78 Wyo. 241, 252, 322 Pac. (2d) 141, (1958). Compare the declaration of the Colorado Supreme Court in 1912: "The state has never relinquished its right of ownership and claim to the waters of our natural streams, though it has granted to its citizens, upon prescribed conditions, the right to the use of such waters for beneficial purposes and within its own boundaries." Stockman v. Leddy, 55 Colo. 24, 27-28, 129 Pac. 220 (1912). And in that same year, the Supreme Court of Nebraska held that as running water in this jurisdiction is publici juris, its use being owned by the public and controlled by the State in its sovereign capacity, "This state then has such a proprietary interest in the running water of its streams and in the beneficial use thereof that it may transfer a qualified ownership or right of use thereof. When it grants such ownership or right of use it may impose such limitations and |