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Show SPRING WATERS 621 " [P] rotection of the public interest in the development of the water resources of the state is of vital concern to the people of the state and * * * the state shall determine in what way the water of the state, both surface and underground, should be developed for the greatest public benefit."296 Whatever may have gone before, the current legislative interest in the law of spring water rights is declared as follows:297 46-5-1 * * * A landowner may not prevent the natural flow of the stream, or of the natural spring from which it commences its definite course, or of a natural spring arising on his land which flows into and constitutes a part of the water supply of a natural stream, nor pursue nor pollute the same, except as provided by § 46-5-2. 46-5-2 * * * Any person owning land through which any non- navigable stream passes, may construct and maintain a dam across such nonnavigable stream if the course of the water is not changed, vested rights are not interfered with, and no land flooded other than that belonging to the owner of such dam or upon which an easement for such purposes has been secured. 46-5-3 * * * Nothing in § 46-5-1 and § 46-5-2 shall be con- strued to prevent the owner of land on which a natural spring arises, and which constitutes the source or part of the water supply of a definite stream, from acquiring a right to appropriate the flow from such spring in the manner provided by law for the appropri- ation of waters. Texas Property characteristics.-A right created by a grant to enter upon land and to take the waters of a spring or well located thereon amounts to an interest in real estate,298 whether or not held to be an easement (as it is in some States). A spring that neither contributes to the flow of a watercourse nor is connected with a subsurface stream flowing in a defined channel is the exclusive property of the landowner. He may grant a right of access to the spring. He has, in addition, all other rights incident to it that one might have with respect to any other species of property.299 Spring tributary to watercourse. -The owner of a tract of land on which a spring arises and from which the spring water flows in the channel of a stream is not the absolute owner of all the spring water.300 The opinion in a case decided during the reconstruction period treated the head spring of a stream as a part of the stream and accorded to the owner of the land containing the spring no special rights-only the right of a riparian owner to make reasonable 296Id. § 46-1-2. 297 S. Dak. Comp. Laws. Ann. § § 46-5-1 to 46-5-3 (1967). m Evans v. Ropte, 128 Tex. 75, 79, 96 S.W. (2d) 973 (1936). 299 Texas Co. v. Burkett, 117 Tex. 16, 28-29, 296 S.W. 273 (1927). 300 Cluck v. Houston & T. C. R.R., 34 Tex. Civ. App. 452, 453, 79 S.W. 80 (1904). |