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Show NORTH PLATTE RIVER LITIGATION 751 The United States points out that the first part of this restriction may be construed to forbid Wyoming diverters from making the same use of Kendrick return flow water as is permitted Nebraska diverters. Natural flow in this case is used throughout as including return flow. Return flows once returned to the river and abandoned are part of the natural" flow available for use by all natural flow diverters within the limitations of the apportionment. To avoid any possible misunder- standing, there should be substituted for the first clause of this pro- posed provision a clause which makes clear that return flows of the Kendrick Project are, for the purposes of the decree, deemed to be natural flows when they have reached the North Platte River. The question whether the United States may divert water from the river at or above Alcova Reservoir as in lieu of Kendrick return flow water reaching the river below Alcova presents complexities. Both the United States and Wyoming contend that that privilege should be gran-ted. The return flow is estimated at 96,000 acre feet a year, 46,000 acre feet being the estimated return during the irrigation season. Some of that return flow will be natural drainage, some will be from sump areas, already noted, from which the United States will construct drainage ditches and thus return to the river water which would otherwise be lost. How much will be returned by natural drainage and how much from the sump areas is not presently known, since the Kendrick Project is not completed. We will consider first the return flow from natural drainage. Ide v. United States, 263 U.S. 497, held that the United States might recapture water which resulted from seepage from irrigated lands under a reclamation project and which was not susceptible of private appropriation under Wyoming law. The same conclusion was reached in United States y. Tilley, 124 F. 2d 850, where the United States was held to be entitled to use and apply the seepage from one divi- sion of the North Platte Project to supply lands of another division as against the claim of Nebraska of a right to intercept the seep- age and apply it to appropriators senior to the project. And see Ramshom Ditch Co. v. United States, 269 F. 80. Cf. United States v. Warmsprings Irrigation Dist., 38 F. Supp. 239. In the Ide case this Court said: "The seepage producing the artificial flow is part of the water which, the plaintiff, in virtue of its appropriation, takes from the Shoshone River and conducts to the project lands in the vicinity of the ravine for use in their irrigation. The defendants insist that when water is once used under the appropriation it cannot be used again,- that the right to use it is exhausted. But we perceive no ground for thinking the appropriation is thus restricted. According to the rec- ord it is intended to cover, and does cover, the reclamation and culti- vation of all the lands within the project. A second use in accom- plishing that object is as much within the scope of the appropriation as a first use is. The state law and the National Reclamation Act both contemplate that the water shall be so conserved that it may be subjected to the largest practicable use. A further contention is that the plaintiff sells the water before it is used, and therefore has no right in the seepage. But the water is not sold. In disposing of the lands in small parcels, the plaintiff invests each purchaser with a right to |