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Show WASTE, SEEPAGE, AND RETURN WATERS 579 Even though the party using waste and seepage waters resulting from irrigation of the original appropriator's land acquires no permanent right to have water wasted for his benefit, he is entitled to use them as long as these waters are available.79 Once waste and seepage waters pass from the control of the original appropriator, return to the natural channel and become a part of the supply for downstream users, the landowner cannot, by an application for change, change his point of diversion, place or manner of use if it interferes with the rights of a downstream user.80 An appropriator is entitled to rely on stream conditions remaining substantially as they were when he made his appropriation. Return Waters The definition of return flow included in an earlier publication by the author81 is much the same as that given at the outset of this topic, "Waste, Seepage, and Return Waters." Some important facets of the physical subject follow: Return flow includes both avoidable and unavoidable losses from the project on which water is used. Part of the return water is water which escaped from control by leaking through and around structures, seeping through canal banks, and penetrating below the root zones of plants; and part is water purposely released from the ends of canals and over wasteways. Return jvyaternormally returns to the stream from which diverted. However, iLiranspqrted .to another^wjitershed, in which case it would naturally drain toward a different channel, such water would nevertheless be properly classed as return water. It_is_|oreign_to the stream toward which it now drains, but is nevertheless return water from irrigation. Return flow on its way back to the stream may be intercepted by a subterranean dike; or it may be collected in drainage ditches or pumped from underground and reused for irrigation before reaching the stream, withoutjosing its^character as return flow. Visible return flow is that portion of the return water which appears at the surface of the ground before reaching the stream. It collects and is returned to the stream in aritificial or natural drains, or appears in small rivulets or waterfalls, and therefore is often directly measurable. Invisible return flow is that portion which seeps into the river channel through, the banks, below the surface of the stream, or which rises through the 78Smithfield West Bench In. Co. v. Union Central Life Ins. Co., 105 Utah 468,142 Pac. (2d) 866 (1943). "East Bench In. Co. v. Deseret Irr. Co., 2 Utah (2d) 170, 180, 271 Pac. (2d) 449 (1954). 81 Hutchins, W. A., "Policies Governing the Ownership of Return Waters from Irrigation," U.S. Dept. Agric. Tech. Bull. 439 (1934). This reported a study of the practical features of return flow made in 13 of the conterminous mainland Western States-the 11 States farthest West and Nebraska and Texas. |