OCR Text |
Show ORGANIZATION 13 tween existing users, new diversions were being made for new uses-thus compounding water user conflicts and precipitating more litigation. The need for administrative control over water use was clear. But in the early stages of development in the West few States had been created, and there was little opportunity to implement effective control. However, shortly after territorial governments were established, and as Western States began to 'be admitted to the Union, some effort was made to institute a measure of public control over the administration of water rights. The early statutes were a rather modest step toward administra- tive regulation. Typically, a water user was allowed to post notice of intention to appropriate water, and if he was thereafter diligent in completing his appropriation, he was entitled to the doctrine of relation-which allowed him to relate his priority back to the date of posting notice. However, in most States this procedure was not the exclusive means of acquiring a water right, and appropriation rights could still be acquired by merely diverting the water and placing it to beneficial use. Even where the procedure was exclusive, the notices were usually posted only in the county or area where the diversion was made, and there was no central office where a prospective appropriator could examine records and determine the extent of claims on a stream. Therefore, these early statutes were a modest harbinger of admin- istrative regulation, because they related only to the appropriation of water and did not reach the vexing problems of repeated adjudication, or of supervising the distribution of water in accord- ance with established rights. Those reforms were to come later. (2) SCOPE OF PRESENT STATE REGULATIONS AND CONTROLS (a) General administration It was to satisfy the needs mentioned above that the present ad- ministrative structure developed in most of the Western States. WTiile the agency having general responsibility for water right ad- ministration normally has a considerable number of duties, most statutes provide for essentially a threefold approach to water re- source administration: (1) appropriation, (2) adjudication, and (3) distribution. As a corollary matter, the agency which is responsible for water right administration is generally designated as the office of record for all water rights in the State. As indicated in section 2.1.C of this chapter, the emerging concern over the environment has resulted in additional duties and re- sponsibilities being placed in the hands of water right administra- tors, in an attempt to correlate the historic responsibilities of these agencies with a newly developing State policy for environmental protection. For example, some States have recently enacted legis- lation requiring consideration of environmental values when evaluating applications to appropriate, and requiring permits in order to make changes in natural stream channels. While the water rights administrator is usually given jurisdiction over these new programs, they have not materially altered the traditional func- |