RECENT IRRIGATION LEGISLATION. 401 



submit this to the court, which is to define rights, and in North 

 Dakota, Oklahoma, NewMexico, and South Dakota, where the engineer 

 is to make surveys and collect data, and submit the results to the 

 attorney-general, who is to bring actions for adjudications. 



The States of California, Montana, Washington, Kansas, and Texas, 

 and the Territory of Arizona have not yet ado])ted laws under which 

 they try to force adjudication or secure disinterested testimony on 

 which to base decrees. With these exceptions all the States and Ter- 

 ritories provide for the making of surveys and the collection of data 

 on which to base adjudications by public officials, thus doing away 

 with one of the worst evils of early adjudications, the basing of decrees 

 defining rights on interested testimony alone, and often on stipula- 

 tions between the parties to a suit, dividing up among themselves a 

 public property to which they may or may not have acquired rights. 



Since 1905 three new laws covering adjudications have been passed, 

 each a different type, and, with the Wyoming law, presenting the 

 four types which may be taken to represent present ideas on this 

 subject. 



The New Mexico law, adopted in 1907, provides that the territo- 

 rial engineer shall make surveys and collect all available data, and 

 file the results with the attorney-general of the Territory, who 



shall, at the request of the territorial engineer, enter into suit on behalf of the Terri- 

 tory for the determining of all rights to the use of such water, in order that the amount 

 of unappropriated water subject to disposition by the Territory under this act may 

 become known. 



The South Dakota law, adopted in 1907, provides that tlie state 

 engineer shall make surveys, 



obtaining and recording all available data for the determination, development, and 

 adjudication of the water supply of the State, and upon the completion of the surveys 

 shall file the results in his office, to be used as evidence in adjudications. Whenever 

 a suit for adjudication is brought by any party a copy of the complaint must be mailed 

 to the state engineer, and if in the judgment of the engineer the public interest 

 requires action adverse to any part thereof, then he may call upon the attorney- 

 general of the State to intervene in such action, 



and the attorney-general shall do so. Wlien a suit is brought on a 

 stream for which surveys have not already been made, the court 

 "shall by its order duly entered" direct the state engineer to make 

 surveys and obtain chita. Tn addition, the attorney-general is still 

 to bring action when culled ujx)!! by the State engineer to do so. 



The Oregon law of 1909, the latest one passed, combines features 



of the Wyoming and Colorado systems in an interesting way. The 



adjudication is to be made by a board consisting of the state engineer 



and the superintendents of the two water divisions into which the 



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