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Show ABANDONMENT AND STATUTORY FORFEITURE 281 exist and the water theretofore properly claimed under it goes to fill subsequent appropriations in their order of decreed priority."154 In another Colorado case, it was held that a junior appropriator who would benefit from the declaration of abandonment of a senior priority has the right to bring an action praying for a judgment declaring such right to have been abandoned, and without uniting all other appropriators from the same source of supply.lss Abandonment of inchoate appropriative right.-The last topic in chapter 8 is entitled "Inchoate Appropriative Right"-an incomplete appropriative right that ripens into a complete right when the last step required by law has been taken. Questions of abandonment of inchoate rights have been raised from time to time. Although the relationship currently appears to be of very little, if any practical importance, it merits some brief mention. In Colorado the possibility of abandoning a conditional decree of appropriation was the subject of judicial debate and of criticism by a well-known water law authority.156 In the opinion in a 1923 decision the previous literature was discussed, but the court found it unnecessary to decide the question. No subsequent litigation in Colorado has come to the attention of the author.157 The opinion in a case decided by the Wyoming Supreme Court in 1940 contains the statement that "No testimony was offered to show any intention of abandonment, and it has been held that in order that an initiated, inchoate water right may be held to be abandoned, such intention must be shown." The court also said that "while there may be exceptions, the statute of non-user seems, primarily at least, to apply only to a perfected right in case a water right is initiated under a permit and not to an inchoate right, since the statute gives the State Engineer the right not only to extend but also to cancel a permit."158 A permit to appropriate water, issued by the State administrator under the l54Granby Ditch & Res. Co. v. HaUenbeck, 127 Colo. 236, 241-242, 255 Pac. (2d) 965 (1953). liSAffolter v. Rough & Ready Irrigating Ditch Co., 60 Colo. 519, 521-522, 154 Pac. 738 (1916). ls6Conley v. Dyer, 43 Colo. 22, 28-29, 95 Pac. 304 (1908); Crawford Clipper Ditch Co. v. Needle Rock Ditch Co., 50 Colo. 176,182,114 Pac. 655 {\9l\y,Bieser v. Stoddard, 73 Colo. 554, 560, 216 Pac. 707 (1923); Kinney, C. S., "A Treatise on the Law of Irrigation and Water Rights," 2d ed., vol. 2, § § 1102 and 1118 (1912). "'Colorado legislation enacted in 1969 defines "abandonment of a conditional water right" as the "termination of a conditional water right as a result of the failure to develop with reasonable diligence the proposed appropriation upon which such water right is to be based." This is to be contrasted with the definition of "abandonment of a water right" which is the "termination of a water right in whole or in part as a result of the intent of the owner thereof to discontinue permanently the use of all or part of the water available thereunder." [Emphasis added.] Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§148-21-3 (13) and (14) (Supp. 1969). In these regards, see chapter 8 at notes 736-742. "'Campbell v. Wyoming Development Co., 55 Wyo. 347, 400, 402, 100 Pac. (2d) 124, 102 Pac. (2d) 745 (1940). |