OCR Text |
Show of these States have legislative codes providing a couplete systera by which rights to the public waters of the State may be recognized and determined by adjudication proceedings. The latter are usually by Court actions and for the administration of the rights of the appropriators, if such rights have been determined, as required by statute. Such system provides quite complete control over the appropriation, administration, and use of the public water supplies of these States* In some public-land States, where- the doctrine of appropriation does not apply, and especially in the States east of the Mississippi River, there has never been any question as to the power of a State to control the waters within its boundaries, there being no Federal interests, except in connection with navigation, or diversions- from one drainage basin to another. The extent of State control varies from practically no control in some of the Southern States to complete con- trol over all water uses and developments, as in the States of New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Present Methods of Settling Interstate Water Problems. - Interstate water controversies" may be settled by: (a) Original suits between States in the Supreme Court of the United States; (b) review of decisions in the lower Federal Courts between individual or corporate interests; and (c) interstate compacts or treaties. The Supreme Court is the only agency hav- ing jurisdiction over interstate water controversies between Str.tes with authority to effect a division of the vaters of an interstate stream. In Missouri vs. Illinois, in connection with its authority, the Court has announced?* ^ that "the governing rule is that this Court will not exert its extraordinary power to control the conduct of one state at the suit of another, unless the threatened invasion of rights is of serious mayiitude and established ^oy clear and convincing evidence." Suits between private parties in different States concerning the waters of interstate streams merely settle individual controversies and afford little, if anything, in the solution of the larger interstate problems. Where -fche findings of the lowor Federal Courts, however, are reviewed by the Supreme Court, the results of such suits have all the force and effect upon the li-fcigants, and possibly also upon such States in which the waters flow, as if -fche findings, were the result of an original suit between such States.*-*- Voluntary, informal interstate agreements have been resorted to in an attempt: to adjust or settle interstate problems, aside from recourse to the Courts. A notable example is the Ohio River Interstate Stream Conservation Agreement, entered into in I92i{- between the Health Deportment of Ohio, 1/est Virginia, Pennsylvania, and subsequently by eight other interested States, for the purpose of conserving the waters of interstate streams and prevent- ing undue pollution. The cooperative activities of the States under this agreement still continue, but a f omal compact has been drafted. Such agreements afford segue opportunity for the development and administration of the waters of those streams, but because of their quasi legal character, have no pov/er of apportionment of the waters thereof between the States. 2Lliissouri vs. Illinois, 200 U. s. 496 (1906). ^^Pioneer Irrigation Co. vs. John E. Field and A« A» We Hand as State Engineers of the State of Colorado, 259 U. s. 1+98. -88- ' |