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Show CURRENT STATUS 523 water rights law contains provisions for appointment of water commissioners to serve under central control in field offices.24 CURRENT STATUS The procedures that have been found constitutionally unobjectionable-and this includes most of them in the jurisdictions in which the question has been raised in judicial proceedings-have by now weathered long experience and are on the whole an essential part of Western water rights law. Following are brief abstracts of some principal features of provisions or procedures for administra- tion of stream water rights and distribution of water, by States. Additional details are included in the State summaries in the appendix. Abstracts of Procedures in the Several States Alaska The first section of Alaska's 1966 Water Use Act provides, "The Department of Natural Resources shall determine and adjudicate rights in the waters of the State, and in its appropriation and distribution."25 This and other provisions pertaining to the adjudication of water rights are discussed in chapter 15.26 While this first section of the act may contemplate the "distribution" of water, no specific procedures for such distribution are included. However, the penalty provision of the act, among other things, provides: [A] person who violates an order of the commissioner to cease and desist from preventing any water from moving to a person having a prior right to use the same; or who disobeys an order of the commissioner requiring him to take steps to cause the water to so move; or who fails or refuses to install meters, gauges or other measuring devices or control works; or who violates an order establishing corrective controls for an area or for a source of water * * * is guilty of a misdemeanor.27 This implies authority in the commissioner to perform at least the designated functions relating to the distribution of water.28 24Kans. Stat. Ann. § 82a-706e (1969). 25 Alaska Stat. § 46.15.010 (Supp. 1966). "i See notes 79-84 thereof. a7lAlaska Stat. § 46.15.180 (Supp. 1966). 28|The act, however, apparently does not otherwise contain provisions pertaining to the distribution of water, unlike its provisions regarding the determination of existing water rights, discussed in chapter 15 at notes 81-82. For rather similar views regarding the applicability of this act to the distribution of water, see Trelease, F. J., "Alaska's New Water Use Act," 2 Land & Water L. Rev. 1, 36 (1967). |