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Show 14 ORGANIZATION tions of the administrative officer or agency in the administration of existing water rights. In most Western States, water resource administrative responsi- bilities are carried out by a single administrator, who is normally designated the "State Engineer," or some variation of that title. But a number of the Western States have placed this responsibility in the hands of a board or commission which supervises the administra- tive officer. If the water code of a State covers all waters within the State, both surface and underground, then the same statutory procedures will generally apply to govern appropriation and use. There are States which still treat surface water and underground water as separate and distinct sources, and apply different rules to each. However, as noted in chapter 4, the general trend today is to recognize the physi- cal interconnection of surface and underground sources and to ad- minister them as a common source of supply. Special provisions usually control the regulation of water well drilling and water well drillers. Such regulation frequently takes the form of licensing well drillers on an annual basis by the State water administrative agency in order to assure that the driller possesses the necessary training and skill to undertake such a program. Further, in order to provide the State agency with information con- cerning the various ground water basins in the State, the well driller is usually required to submit a log of each well drilled, describing the sediments encountered and identifying any waterbearing strata. (b) Appropriation of water In all but three of the Western States (Colorado, Hawaii, Montana), anyone intending to appropriate water from a surface watercourse is required by statute to make application to the proper State officer or agency in order to initiate his appropriation. How- ever, in some States the application procedure is not exclusive, and rights may be initiated by means other than the filing of an applica- tion. The procedures required in order to perfect an application to appropriate water are set forth in chapter 3 of this part I, but in general terms it may be said that the State officer or agency must find that there is unappropriated water in the source which can be applied to beneficial use by the applicant without impairing exist- ing rights. Absent such a finding, new appropriations are not permitted. Once approved, the applicant proceeds to perfect his water right by constructing the necessary works and applying the water to beneficial use. When this is accomplished, he is issued some sort of certificate from the administrative officer or agency which serves as prima facie evidence of the water right. The constitutionality of this type of legislation has been upheld consistently as a valid exercise of the police power of the State. Thus, by requiring the filing of an application with a central State officer or agency, and requiring a preliminary evaluation to determine whether there is water available for use, State controls are introduced at an early stage in order to assure that water sources are not overappropriated. By evaluating the yield of the |