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Show NATURAL CHANNELS AND RESERVOIRS 603 made them such is not inconsistent with ownership of the bed of the stream by the owner of adjoining farm lands.50 Privilege impermanent.-The requirement that means of diversion and distribution must be reasonably efficient (see "Efficiency of Practices," later) applies to natural channels used for the conveyance of water as well as to artificial conduits. The courts took the view long ago that an old natural depression in such condition as to result in considerable waste of water should be replaced by a good ditch.51 Readily avoidable waste of water finds less and less favor with courts and administrators. Statutes.-It will be noted later, under "Summary of State Statutory Provisions," that authorization to use natural channels for conveying water, with appropriate limitations and safeguards, is contemplated by various statutes, but chiefly with respect to commingling in flowing streams and to exchanges of water. Commingling The general rule.- Most Western State statutes very specifically authorize the practice of commingling-that water appropriated out of one stream may be turned into the channel of another stream, mingled with the water already flowing there, and then reclaimed, provided that the quantity of water to which prior appropriators are entitled shall not be diminished or its quality impaired, and that due allowance is made for losses by evaporation and seepage. In the water administration States, these acts are necessarily carried out under the supervision of the local administrative agents. The high courts that have had occasion to consider this widespread statutory and judicial rule generally have approved it." "Pleasant Valley In. & Power Co. v. Barker, 98 Wash. 459, 462463, 167 Pac. 1092 (1917). 51Stickney v. Hanrahan, 7 Idaho 424, 433, 63 Pac. 189 (1900). In a statutory adjudication, the Oregon Supreme Court criticized as obviously wasteful the long established custom of utilizing sloughs and natural depressions for carrying water, and declared that such means should be sanctioned only until a fair opportunity arises to replace them with artificial works: In re Silvies River, 115 Oreg. 27,44, 237 Pac. 322 (1925). S2Sorenson v. Norell, 24 Colo. App. 470, 471-472, 135 Pac. 119 (1913);Pleasant Valley In. & Power Co. v. Barker, 98 Wash. 459, 462-463, 167 Pac. 1092 (1917);MacKinnon v. Black Pine Min. Co., 32 Idaho 228, 230, 179 Pac. 951 (1919); United States v. Caldwell, 64 Utah 490, 496497, 231 Pac. 434 (1924). Waters conveyed in the Rio Grande from place of storage to places of use did not become part of the streamflow to which a riparian owner was entitled: Parker v. El Paso County W. I. Dist. No. 1, 116 Tex. 631, 643-644, 297 S. W. 737 (1927). Citing this Parker case, the City of El Paso was held by a Federal court to have the right to use the riverbed as a conduit to convey |
