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Show 32 SURFACE WATERS not perfected until the applicant files proof of appropriation with the administrative officer and obtains a document certifying that the appropriation is complete. These documents often are in the form of certificates of appropriation, and are referred to as certificated water rights (as distinguished from approved applications to appropriate). By way of a brief summary, it should be remembered that the per- fected or certificated rights (1) are only for the amount of water actually diverted and applied to beneficial use, even though the ap- plication contemplated a larger water use; (2) are subject to the availability of water to satisfy the right (in dry years nature might not yield sufficient water) ; (3) are subject and subordinate to the priority of existing rights; and (4) are accorded a priority as of the date the application was filed. It might be noted that most of the early cases held that an ap- propriator was not required to own the land, or even to have a valid possessory right, in order to make a beneficial use of water and per- fect a water right. In these cases the land was usually the public domain of the United States and the appropriators were trespassers, but there was a policy in favor of settlement and development which prevailed over the protests of those who were either tres- passers themselves or who were asserting riparian right claims. Today, however, it is doubtful whether an appropriation water right could be acquired for use on land possessed by an appropriator as a naked trespasser, without any claim of possessory right or interest. 3.2 Nature and Limit of Rights a. In General It has already been explained that riparian rights arise by virtue of ownership of riparian land, and that the riparian right, in essence, is a right to make a reasonable use of the water on riparian land. It has also been explained that appropriation rights may be acquired for beneficial uses by diverting and applying water to the intended use, and that these rights are accorded a priority in the order in which they were initiated. Both riparian and appropriation water rights are said to be usufructuary, or rights to take possession of the water and use it, as distinguished from property ownership of the corpus of the water. However, these rights are in the nature of property rights which are entitled to constitutional protection against impairment without due process of law (although unused riparian rights occupy a lesser status, and some States have extinguished such rights and placed riparians on the same basis as nonriparians with respect to obtain- ing permit rights to use water). Riparian and appropriation water uses are subject to water quality standards, and may be enjoined if the water discharge after use vio- lates such standards. Earlier cases have held that private owners of water rights were entitled to protection in the quality as well as quantity of water, and that other users could not unreasonably con- taminate or deteriorate water quality. But the interests protected in |