| OCR Text |
Show 372 APPROPRIATION OF WATER permittee when he demonstrates to the satisfaction of the administrative agency that the works are done and are ready for inspection.725 This, however, does not represent perfection of the water right. That ultimate goal is not reached until the water is applied to the beneficial use or uses covered in the permit. The certificate of completion of construction is a document that follows the permit and precedes the final document, the license evidencing the perfected right. As is true with respect to the other permit system statutes, actual applica- tion of the water to beneficial use is essential to a valid appropriative right. Application of water to beneficial use.- "The sine qua non of making a valid appropriation is and was to apply the water attempted to be appropriated to some beneficial use."726 As against a subsequent appropriator, the right extends to, and only to, the quantity of water actually diverted and applied to a beneficial use.727 This of course is the aim of appropriating water-to make use of it for some definite valuable purpose. The purpose must be a beneficial one. That accomplishment of this purpose is necessary to the completion of the appropriation is now generally true, although as above stated this was not always the case. Thus, an appropriation made in Idaho under the "constitutional" method is complete on application of the water to the beneficial use for which the water is appropriated.728 Under the current administrative statute, likewise, no appropriation is complete until this has taken place. However, previous statutory appropriations were completed when the works were constructed and water was conducted through the same to the place of intended use, subject to being lost by failure to apply the water to beneficial use within a reasonable time.729 What developed into the later western view is expressed by the Utah Supreme Court in an opinion rendered several years after enactment of the first complete water appropriation statute of that State. After stating the three principal elements necessary to constitute a valid appropriation, the court said that:730 But we think the filing of a written application with the state engineer, as required by the statute, is but declaring, or the giving of a notice of, an intention to appropriate unappropriated public water. The final step, and the most essential element, to constitute a completed valid appropriation of water, is the application of it to a beneficial purpose. Whatever else is required to be or is done, until the actual application of the water is made 725N. Mex. Stat. Ann. § 75-5-9 (1968); Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 82, §§ 52 and 53 (1970); S. Dak. Comp. Laws Ann. § § 46-5-27 to 46-5-29 (1967). 726Robinson v. Schoenfeld, 62 Utah 233, 238, 218 Pac. 1041 (1923). 121Kernan v.Andrus, 6 Alaska 54, 59-60 (1918). 128Reno v. Richards, 32 Idaho 1, 10, 178 Pac. 81 (1918). 129Basinger v. Taylor, 30 Idaho 289, 299, 164 Pac. 522 (1917). 130Sowards v.Meagher, 37 Utah 212, 223, 108 Pac. 1112 (1910). |
