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Show METHODS OF APPROPRIATING WATER OF WATERCOURSES 297 California report noted above, also made under the direction of Elwood Mead.379 An extreme example-but in fairness not typical-was a stipulated decree awarding to a millowner 1265/4084 of water flowing in a small creek during a prescribed part of the year.380 As Dr. George Thomas has said, measurements and records of streamflow over a period of years would have been of inestimable value; "But the counties were poor, engineers were not available, * * *."381 Agreement upon (a) a scheduled pro rata division of the flow of a fluctuating stream among parties owning varying acreages of land, and (b) upon actual division of the flow pursuant thereto at a particular time, without the benefit of technical assistance, must have been fraught with difficulty and frustration, to say the least.382 Abandonment of most posting and filing methods.-It is not strange that as water development and demands for further expansion increased throughout the West, and as the inadequacies of prestatutory and early statutory methods of appropriating water became widely appreciated, movements to obtain better legislative foundation for projected enterprises should appear in one State after another. Furthermore, a national reclamation program was getting under way in Congress. Mead's experience in Wyoming convinced him that successful administrative control over public waters was no longer an illusory concept. It had become demonstrably a practicable reality. In the introductory article of the California report Dr. Mead made a strong case for public control, in which his group of expert assistants specifically concurred.383 His letter of submittal of the Utah report repeated the recommendation.384 At the turn of the century, heavy pressures were developing in Utah for public supervision over adequate definitions of existing water rights and acquisition of new rights. This resulted in enactment of the first Utah 379 U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 124, supra note 369. See also Mead, Elwood, "Irrigation Institu- tions," pp. 229-232 (1910). 380U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 124, supra note 369, at 283. Two typical examples: three-tenths of the flow to plaintiffs, the remainder in definite proportion to 13 of the 16 defendants; nine-elevenths of one-half the flow to plaintiffs, remainder to defendants. Id. at 284, 270. 381 Thomas, G., supra note 378, at 140-141. 382 Wayne D. Criddle, formerly State Engineer of Utah, advised the author in a letter dated April 5, 1962, that the determinations and stipulated decrees dividing streams of the State into fractions and awarding the divisions to various users (as well as those providing for multiple classes of water) "have caused us no end of trouble in water administration," but fortunately most of them were superseded by modern determina- tions under the special statutory procedure or in private litigation. Related old Utah statutory provisions and court decrees with respect to "primary" and "secondary" water rights are discussed below under "Restrictions and Preferences in Appropriation of Water-Preferences in Water Appropriation-Use of appropriated water: In time of water shortage." 383U.S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 100, supra note 371, at 51-65. 384U.S. Dept Agr. Bull. 124, supra note 369, at 7-8. |