19 



Copies of all court decrees are filed in the engineer's office and are 

 card indexed under the name of tlie ditch or reservoir. 



All maps filed under the present law are of unift)rm size, 24 by 36 

 inches, and are filed in books of that size and bound. 



The following fees are collected by the Colorado engineer: 



For oxaniination, filins:, and certification to tlie duplicate of each map and statement of 

 claim, and of each judicial decree ordering the transfer of a water right, .?! ; each certificate 

 other than that made in the case of an original filing, $1 ; for examination and filing of each 

 set of plans and specifications for reservoir, dam, or other structure for utilizing or storing 

 ■water, $1 for each So.tWK) of estimated cos! : copies of plats, $1 per hour for time spent in 

 making; copies of records, 10 cents per folio. 



All filing fees from April S to Septem])er 15, l!)()o, amounted to $520. 



WYOMING. 



The office of Territorial enginec^r was created in AVyoming in 1SS6. 

 Prior to that there was provision for water commissioners who were to 

 distri])ute water, but no other provision for any pu])lic control of water. 

 The Territorial engineer was given general supervision of the diversion 

 and division of water and supervision of the work of the water com- 

 missioners. He was also to make measurements and calculations of 

 stream flow and collect facts as to systems of reservoirs. The clerks 

 of courts were instructed to send copies of all decrees to the engineer, 

 who prepared from them instructions to the water commissioners. 



The present system was created when Wyoming was admitted as a 

 State, in 1890, the outlines being embodied in the constitution and the 

 details supplied by the first legislature. The system as adopted at 

 that time and still in existence, with only minor changes, contained 

 two radical departures from existing practice in this country. These 

 were the adjudication of rights by an administrative body, and the 

 acquirement of rights through application to a public official, who had 

 power to refuse it under certain circumstances rather than l>y taking 

 the water and posting and filing a claim as notice to others of the exist- 

 ence of tlie right. These provisions were founded on a principle new 

 to American irrigation law. The State was declared to be the owner 

 of the water and rights to its use were to be acquired by grant or 

 license from the State, while under the old system the water was con- 

 sidered as belonging to the public, and the State exercised only such 

 supervision as was necessary to preserve the peace. This new inter- 

 pretation has been denied by the supreme court of the State, although 

 it has upheld the laws as a proper exercise of the police power of the 

 State (Farm Investment Company v. Carpenter, 61 Pac, 258; Willey 

 V. Decker, 73 Pac, 210), but the principle in mind when the laws 

 were enacted was undoubtedly that the State was proprietor of the 

 water and granted rights to its use. 



