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Show 254 such as the Navajos possess a deep attachment for tribal lands, no matter how poor these may be.626 Summary Irrigation is the artificial application of water to soil for the purpose of supplying the water essential to plant growth. Of the total land irrigated in the United States, nearly 95% lies in the 17 Western States. Federal responsibility for and participation in irrigation undertakings has assumed increas- ingly larger proportions since passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902. Water Rights.-A water right is a right to the use of water, not to the corpus of the water itself. There are two funda- mentally divergent doctrines of state water law which sepa- rately or in varying combination govern the rights to use water. The English or common-law riparian doctrine, prevailing in the East, recognizes the right of a riparian owner to make rea- sonable use of a stream's waters, but only on his riparian lands. And all riparian owners are entitled to the continued natural flow of the stream. Rights under the riparian doctrine are not lost by failure to use the water. On the other hand, the appropriation doctrine rests on the proposition that beneficial use of the water is the basis, measure, and limit of the appropriative right. The first in time is prior in right. Water rights are not limited to land riparian to a stream and may be lost by abandonment. The appropriation doctrine is recognized in all 17 of the Western States, some- times in combinatioln with various aspects of the riparian doctrine. Rights to the use of ground water have received increasing attention as the quantity of unappropriated waters has dimin- ished. There are indications of a trend toward conservation of ground water on a reasonable-use basis and toward apply- ing to ground water the principles of use and administration applicable to surface waters. 928 See The Navajo, Report of the Secretary of the Interior, p. VII (March 1948); Arizona Highways, p. [3] (December 1949). |