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Show RELATIVE RIGHTS OF SENIOR AND JUNIOR APPROPRIATORS 569 have the association's irrigation system bring water to their land in order that they thereby could, in the first instance, appropriate such water by use on such lands and, in the second place, continue thereafter to exercise such right so long as they paid the necessary operation and maintenance charges comprising, or including, assessments on their shares of stock. Under such circumstances, necessarily, the qualifying phrase in the opinion in the Whiting case, "regardless of the ownership of stock in the corporation,"642 is not applicable. District- As distinguished from the water right to which an irrigation district holds formal title, the right of a holder of irrigable land within the district to receive water from the irrigation system is usually appurtenant to the specific tract of irrigable land as it is listed on the assessment roll. The landowners pay for the service of water in the form of assessments levied upon the land, or through toll charges for water actually delivered, or both assessments and tolls. The right of an individual to receive water from districts of some other types vests in the landowner solely by reason of inclusion of the land therein because of the anticipated benefit. In still others, the right is derived from execution of a voluntary water-service contract between the individual landowner and the district. Municipality. -The right of an inhabitant of a municipality to receive water from its facilities is incident to his residence within the city limits. RELATIVE RIGHTS OF SENIOR AND JUNIOR APPROPRIATORS Rights of Senior Appropriator Exclusive to Extent of Prior Appropriation (1) A fundamental facet of the Western States doctrine of prior appropria- tion, as developed in the early mining days, was that the one who first appropriates water has the sole right to use the same for the purpose for which it was appropriated,643 to the exclusion of any subsequent appropriation for the same purpose or for any other use of the water,644 and to the full extent of his appropriation if necessary for his beneficial uses.645 According to the California Supreme Court about a century later, "As between appropriators * * * the one first in time is the first in right, and a prior appropriator is entitled to all the water he needs, up to the amount that he has taken in the past, before a subsequent appropriator may take any."646 In this case, the M2Id. 643Hoffman v. Stone, 7 Cal. 46, 49 (1857). ""Ortman v. Dixon, 13 Cal. 33, 38 (1859). 6A5Butte Canal & Ditch Co. v. Vaughn, 11 Cal. 143, 153-154 (1858); Senior v. Anderson, 130 Cal. 290, 297, 62 Pac. 563 (1900). 646Pasadena v.Alhambra, 33 Cal. (2d) 908, 926, 207 Pac. (2d) 17 (1949). |
