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Show 534 THE APPROPRIATIVE RIGHT inhabitants of a city, as well as for domestic use, is integrated with the general municipal needs of the municipality and is thus in the favored class; use of water for business pursuits of farmers in the form of irrigation and commercial stockraising is not. In much of the early western development, the distinction between irrigation and domestic purposes was not of practical importance in the acquisition and exercise of appropriative water rights. In the Southwest, before the dawn of written history, the two uses were served in various Indian communities; and from the beginning of modern history water was supplied for these purposes by Spanish-American community acequias. This experience was repeated in Utah's Mormon settlements, and in non-Mormon developments elsewhere in the West. Individual farmers who diverted water for irrigation often used part of the supply for their domestic needs. As group organizations came into general use, they often appropriated water for both irrigation and domestic purposes. Controversies over a claim of favored classification were more likely to arise when a community endeavored to obtain a municipal water supply with a higher preference standing, at the expense of irrigationists.476 And as western cities grew in numbers of inhabitants and in area, arbitrary preferences in use of water in the complex whole of a metropolitan area, as among domestic, municipal, industrial, or other purposes, became more and more outdated and impracticable.477 (b) In any event, as stated at length in the final parts of chapter 7 in discussing restrictions and preferences in the appropriation doctrine, there is considerable legislation in the western water appropriation statutes, and indeed 'there are some constitutional provisions, relating to restrictions and preferences in the appropriation and use of water. As there noted, in all declarations in which a specific order of preference is stated, domestic use has first place; closely associated with domestic use in the statutes and court decisions is municipal use, and the tenor of the statutory preferences is to ignore any distinction between the strictly domestic use of water by the city's inhabitants and the strictly municipal uses of water by the city. This simply means that in rural areas, domestic use is most highly favored; in urban areas, domestic and municipal share this position without prejudice to either use. (c) Aside from the question of statutory and constitutional preferences, special attention is given in some of the appropriation statutes and high court decisions to domestic and municipal uses of water. Some details follow 476Sterling v. Pawnee Ditch Extension Co., 42 Colo. 421, 426-427, 94 Pac. 339 (1908); Montrose Canal Co. v. Loutsenhizer Ditch Co., 23 Colo. 233, 236-237, 48 Pac. 532 (1896). 477 In chapter 7, see "Methods of Appropriating Water of Watercourses-Restrictions and Preferences in Appropriation of Water-Preferences in Water Appropriation-Order of preferences in purpose of use." |
