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Show 198 WATER RIGHTS SYSTEMS PERTAINING TO WATERCOURSES North Dakota.-ln the very few cases in the early Territorial and State supreme courts in which riparian water rights were considered, the courts adhered to the riparian doctrine. A territorial statute provided that water running in a definite natural stream might be used by the landowner as long as it remains there, but that he might not prevent the natural flow of the stream nor pursue nor pollute it.186 The North Dakota Legislature declared in 1955 that the several and reciprocal rights of a riparian owner, other than a municipal corporation, in the waters of the State comprise the ordinary or natural use of water for domestic and stockwatering purposes.187 Both provisions were eliminated in 1963 and different ones enacted which relate to priority of water rights and preferences in the use of water.188 As amended by the 1955 legislation, the statute declares, among other things, that waters flowing in watercourses belong to the public and are subject to appropriation.189 In a recent case, the North Dakota Supreme Court appears to have concluded that unused riparian rights to irrigate from an underground stream could be validly abrogated by this and related legislation, at least as against appropriative rights acquired thereafter, and that the riparian owner could be validly required to apply for and be governed by an appropriative- right permit. But the court qualified this by stating that it did not approve of the State Water Commission's granting to one of two adjacent landowners who had applied "at approximately the same time ... so much water that the other was in effect denied use of any water."190 This case did not involve any consideration of the 1963 legislation. Oklahoma. -An Oklahoma territorial statute provided that water running in a definite natural stream might be used by the landowner as long as it remains there, but that he might not prevent the natural flow of the stream nor pursue nor pollute it.191 The Oklahoma territorial and State legislatures subsequently enacted various water appropriation statutes. The tenor of Oklahoma court decisions is that the riparian doctrine is established as a facet of the State water law but its extent and its correlation with appropriative water rights is rather unclear. Most of the decisions involved other matters than rights to the use of stream water on riparian land, important among which is pollution of water. In 1963, the Oklahoma legislature attempted to clarify the matter by, among other things, recognizing a riparian right to domestic use of water but by otherwise restricting unused riparian 186Terr. Dak. Laws 1865-1866, ch. 1, § 256, Civ. Code § 255 (1877); N. Dak. Cent. Code Ann. § 47-01-13 (1960). 187N. Dak. Laws 1955, ch. 345, § 2. Cent. Code Ann. § 61-01-01.1 (1960). 188N.Dak. Laws 1963, ch. 419, Cent. Code Ann. § 61-01-01.1 (Supp. 1969). 189N. Dak. Cent. Code Ann. § 61-01-01 (1960), created by Laws 1905, ch. 34, § 1. i90Baeth v. Hoisveen, 157 N. W. (2d) 728, 733-734 (N. Dak. 1968). 191 Terr. Okla. Stat. § 4162 (1890), Stat. Ann. tit. 60, § 60 (Supp. 1961). |