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Show 430 APPROPRIATION OF WATER As originally enacted in 1895, and as still in the statute, the water rights law declares these preferences in times when the available water is not enough for all, but it does not include the final proviso forbidding acquisition of an inferior right without payment of just compensation.994 In other words, the legislature did not amend this preexisting statute to conform to the constitutional inhibition. Before the Nebraska constitution added this limiting proviso, the supreme court held that vested rights of completed appropriations cannot be destroyed without compensation.995 And more recently, the supreme court observed that the framers of the constitution clearly intended to provide that water previously appropriated for power purposes may be taken and appropriated for irrigation use upon payment of just compensation, and not otherwise.996 (d) The Oregon statutory provision cited above was first enacted in 1893.997 It declares the domestic preference to be "subject to such limitations as may be presecribed by law." In 1955, the Oregon Legislature created the State Water Resources Board, with powers and duties of major significance in the field of water law. Among several declarations of policy that the Board is directed to take into consideration in formulating a coordinated program for use and control of the State water resources is the following: When "available supplies of water are insufficient for all who desire to use them," preference must go first to human consumption, second to livestock consumption, and thereafter other beneficial uses in an order consonant with the public interest under the existing circumstances.998 No reference was made to the earlier enactment. So far as has been ascertained, neither of the foregoing sections has been construed by the Oregon Supreme Court.999 But in a recent case, the Oregon Court of Appeals appears to have concluded that they have only a limited effect. With respect to the earlier 1893 statutory provision (section 540.140), it stated that the 1909 Oregon Water Act had substituted "priority based on time of appropriation for the pre-1909 statutory preference (ORS 540.140) 994Nebr. Laws 1895, ch. 69, § 43, Rev. Stat. § 46-204 (1968). 995Kearney Water & Electric Power Co. v. Alfalfa In. Dist., 97 Nebr. 139, 146,149 N. W. 363 (1914). In Crawford Co. v. Hathaway, 67 Nebr. 325, 371-372, 93 N. W. 781 (1903), the supreme court construed the statutory preference as intending to protect the riparian owner in the use of water for drinking, cooking, and stock watering; that it did not extend to general municipal purposes nor to flushing sewers. This case was overruled on other matters by Wasserburger v. Coffee, 180 Nebr. 147, 141 N. W. (2d) 738 (1966). 996Loup River Public Power Dist. v. North Loup River Public Power & Irr. Dist., 142 Nebr. 141, 152-153, 5 N. W. (2d) 240 (1942). 997Oreg. Laws 1893, p. 150, § 3, Rev. Stat. § 540.140 (Supp. 1969). 998Oreg. Rev. Stat. § 536.310(12) (Supp. 1969). '"However, from a proper construction of another provision authorizing approval of applications for municipal water supplies "to the exclusion of all subsequent appropriations" {id. § 537.190), the supreme court in 1914 thought it apparent that |