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Show UTAH 727 a change, the water user must file a change application with the State engineer and receive his approval before the change can be accomplished. This statutory procedure is exclusive. Such changes may be made either on a permanent basis or a temporary basis, the latter being limited to a period not to exceed 1 year.90 B. PROCEDURAL STEPS The procedures for publication of notice, protests, and hearings on change applications are the same as discussed above for applica- tions to appropriate. C. CRITERIA FOR APPROVAL The right to make a change is a conditional right and not an absolute or vested right. The approval or rejection of a change application depends on whether or not the proposed change will impair other vested rights. If the State engineer determines that there will be an impairment, the change cannot be approved without the applicant compensating the owner of the right being affected.91 This applies to rights which have a priority date junior to the right being changed (since the junior right predates the change applica- tion) as well as rights which have an earlier priority. While the applicant has the burden of making a prima facia case that other rights will not be impaired,92 the protestant of a change will fail if his evidence does not disclose that his rights will be impaired.93 However, if the change is approved, the priority of the water right which is being moved is not affected by the change, and the right retains its original priority date. The State engineer's decision re- garding a change application is subject to appeal. D. LIMITATIONS As noted above, no change shall be made if it impairs any vested right without just compensation. In connected with surface water, the Utah court has held that where a portion of a user's water has returned to the watercourse and constitutes a part of the supply for downstream appropriators, a proposed change which would reduce the return flow to these downstream users will not be allowed.94 The protection afforded downstream appropriators extends to the time of year when the water is used as well as to the quantity used.95 E. EXCHANGES OF WATER Water changes must be distinguished from water exchanges. Utah has a statutory procedure which allows a water user to turn his water into a natural watercourse, or reservoir constructed across the stream, and take a like quantity of water (less the quantity lost by evapora- tion and seepage) at some other point along the watercourse. How- 80 Utah Code Ann., see. 73-3-3. MUtah Code Ann., sec. 73-3-3. »2 Tanner v. Humphreys, 87 Utah 164, 48 P. 2d 484 (1935). 83 Salt Lake City v. Boundary Springs Water Users Assn., 2 U. 2d 141, 270 P. 2d 453 (1954). MPiute Res. & Irr. Co. v. West Panguitch Trr. & Res. Co., 13 U. 2d 6, 367 P. 2d 855 (1962). *East Bench Irr. Co. v. Utah, 5 U. 2d 235, 300 P. 2d 603 (1963). |