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Show THE RIPARIAN RIGHT 143 (2) Texas, (a) Riparian lands may be lawfully included within a public water district. If so, they are (i) entitled to the benefits conferred and (ii) subject to taxation by the district (if authorized by its enabling act) for purposes of organization and operation. The water rights of a riparian landowner who diverts water from the stream for irrigation of his riparian land are not affected by inclusion of his land in the district, for he can still assert his right to divert through his own ditch (unless of course condemned by the district) his just proportion of the riparian water. Notwithstanding this, the lands are lawfully subject to district taxation.734 (b) In Parker v. El Paso County Water Improvement District Number 1, discussed immediately above, the locus of the riparian land was the Federal Rio Grande Project in El Paso County, Texas. The Texas Supreme Court made some observations in this case as to relative water rights of the district and of the owner of riparian land included therein.735 Among these were: The riparian owner has the right to take his just correlative proportion of riparian water from the river and to conduct it to and use it on his land. This is incident to his ownership of the land, part and parcel thereof, and property within the constitutional guarantees. The district cannot take that water and distribute it without his consent, if he wishes to use it himself and does so. But if the riparian does not take the share to which he is entitled, then that proportion, while he refrains from taking it, increases the residue of riparian water in the river available for the use of other riparian proprietors, including those whose lands are within the district boundaries. This water may be taken out of the river by the riparian landowners, or by the district for distribution if they have authorized it to do so. The floo.dwaters impounded upstream, turned into the channel of the Rio Grande, and permitted to mingle with the ordinary flow did not become a part of the riparian waters of the stream. In using the channel and banks of the Rio Grande for delivering its appropriated water from the place of storage to the places of use within its boundaries, whether on riparian or nonriparian land, the district was acting pursuant to its statutory authority and within its legal rights, regardless of the question of riparian rights. (c) In Ward County Water Improvement District Number 2 v. Ward County Irrigation District Number 1, a suit between two public water districts, it was held-by reference to a much earlier case involving an irrigation corporation- that title to the riparian water rights inherent in lands contiguous to the Pecos River and located within the plaintiff district remained vested in the respective landowners and was not affected by the district organization.736 734Parker v. El Paso County W. I. Dist. No. 1, 116 Tex. 631, 638-642, 297 S.W. 737 (1927). 73S116 Tex. at 642-644. 736 Ward County W. I. Dist. No. 2 v. Ward County In. Dist. No. 1, 222 S.W. 665, 666-667 (Tex. Civ. App. 1920, error refused), referring to Mud Creek Irr., Agric. & Mfg. Co. v. |