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Show 16 ity may be appropriately invoked both as to the upper non- navigable reaches of a navigable waterway and as to its nonnavigable tributaries, if the navigable capacity of the navigable waterway is affected or if interstate commerce is otherwise affected. For example, in the 1890 River and Harbor Act, Congress prohibited the creation of obstructions to the navigable ca- pacity of any waters "in respect of which the United States has jurisdiction." *" In United States v. Rio Grande Irrigation Co., the Supreme Court held this prohibition adequate to sus- tain an injunction against the proposed construction of an irrigation project in nonnavigable upper reaches of the Rio Grande in New Mexico upon a finding of substantial diminu- tion of navigability downstream.47 The Court said:48 It is not a prohibition of any obstruction to the navi- gation, but any obstruction to the navigable capacity, and anything, wherever done or however done, within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States which tends to destroy the navigable capacity of one of the navigable waters of the United States, is within the terms of the prohibition. Commenting also upon the power of each state to change the common-law rule entitling every riparian owner to the con- tinued natural flow of a stream crossing or bordering his lands and by such change to permit the appropriation of flowing waters for such purposes as the state deems wise, the Court specified two important limitations on such state power:49 First, that in the absence of specific authority from Congress a State cannot by its legislation destroy the right of the United States, as the owner of lands border- ing on a stream, to the continued flow of its waters; so far at least as may be necessary for the beneficial uses 44 Act of September 19,1890,26 Stat. 426,454. "174U. S. 690 (1899). a174U. S. at 708. •174 U.S. at 703. |