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Show 292 LOSS OF WATER RIGHTS IN WATERCOURSES shall cease and the water shall revert to the public and be again subject to appropriation.206 California .-When an appropriator, or his successor in interest, ceases to use the appropriated water for a useful or beneficial purpose, the right ceases.207 When the holder of a vested right to water fails to beneficially use all or any part of the water claimed by him, for the purpose for which it was appropriated or adjudicated, for 3 successive years, such unused water reverts to the public and shall be regarded as unappropriated public water.208 Special provisions apply to nonuse of water rights appurtenant to lands held by the United States in trust for Indians.209 Others apply to nonuse of appropriative irrigation water rights by reason of crop control or soil conservation contracts with the United States; and to other cases of hardship prescribed by rule by the State Water Resources Control Board. In the cases of hardship or contracts with the United States, the forfeiture period shall be extended no more than 10 years or for the duration of any such contract if less than 10 years.210 Colorado .-None.211 Hawaii-None.212 Idaho.-All rights to the use of water, whether acquired under this statute or otherwise, not beneficially used for 5 years for the purpose for which appropriated shall be lost and forfeited. Any right to the use of water lost through nonuse or forfeiture shall revert to the State and be again subject to appropriation under the statute. The statute provides procedures authorizing the State Reclamation Engineer to extend the time for forfeiture for an additional period not to exceed 5 years upon a showing of good and sufficient cause for the nonuse.213 206 Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 45-101 (C) (1956). 207Cal. Water Code § 1240 (West 1956). This section of the Water Code reenacted in 1943, practically verbatim, a section of the California Civil Code enacted in 1872 reading: "Sec. 1411. The appropriation must be for some useful or beneficial purpose, and when the appropriator or his successor in interest ceases to use it for such a purpose, the right ceases." 208 Cal. Water Code § 1241 (West 1956). This section of the Water Code reenacted in 1943, in much the same language, § 20a which was added to the Water Commission Act by Stats. 1917, ch. 544, § 2, and read, "When the party entitled to the use of water fails to beneficially use all or any part of the water claimed by him, for which a right of use has vested, for the purpose for which it was appropriated, or adjudicated, for a period of three years, such unused water shall revert to the public and shall be regarded as unappropriated public water." 209CaL Water Code § 1241.5 (West Supp. 1969). 210Id. §1241.6. 211 With respect to so-called "abandonment" of unperfected, or conditional, water rights in Colorado, see, in chapter 8, "Inchoate Appropriative Right-Conditional Decrees and Water Rights in Colorado." 212With respect to extinguishment of rights to ground water, see Haw. Rev. Stat. § 177-18 (1968), mentioned in chapter\20. 213 Idaho Code Ann. §42-222(2) (Supp. 1969). |