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Show METHODS OF APPROPRIATING WATER OF WATERCOURSES 419 When the whole net investment is amortized and repaid, the project becomes the property of the State. Other factors.-(I) Other matters stressed in some of the statutes as essential to the approval of an application to appropriate water include:942 - The applicant should demonstrate his intention to construct his proposed works in good faith and with due diligence. Purposes of speculation or monopoly are not acceptable. - Particularly in case of large undertakings, the applicant must show to the satisfaction of the State administrative agency that the plans are physically and economically feasible. - Also particularly with respect to large projects, the applicant's financial ability to carry the construction satisfactorily to completion must be shown. The Idaho Department is prohibited from issuing a permit to appropriate waters of any lake 5 acres or less in surface area, pond, pool, or spring located wholly on lands of another except to such other owner or with his written permission, formally verified.943 In Nebraska, no application is exclusive of any of the lands included therein until the owners formally consent thereto. No application made or canal constructed prior to perfection of the appropriation, or filing of such consent, prevents other applications from being allowed and canals constructed to irrigate the same lands.944 (2) Restrictions against allowing diversions of water from one. watershed into another, to the injury of persons living in the areas of origin, appear in some western statutes. This matter is considered in chapter 8 under "Elements of the Appfopriative Right-Diversion of Water from Watershed". (3) Also see the earlier discussion under "Storage Water Appropriation- Method of Appropriation-Relative priorities of direct flow and storage water rights." This includes a discussion of a 1969 Texas case applying a system of "weighted priorities" in what the court called an "unprecedented" situa- tion.945 (4) For additional considerations regarding navigable watercourses and their tributaries, see chapter 4. Preferences in Water Appropriation Order of preferences in purpose of use. -Certain preferences in the field of water appropriation exist with respect to: (a) the acquisition of rights to appropriate water under the statutory procedure; (b) the use of water already 942See Idaho Code Ann. § §42-203 and 204 (1948); Oreg. Rev. Stat. §537 .150 and .160 (Supp. 1969); Utah Code Ann. §73-3-8 (1968); Wyo. Stat. Ann. §41-205 (1957). 943Idaho Code Ann. § §42-212 and -213 (1948). 944Nebr. Rev. Stat. §46-234 (1968). 945State v. Hidalgo County Water Control Improvement Dist. No. 18, 443 S. W. (2d) 728, 739, 745 (Tex. Civ. App. 1969). |
