The Distribution of Water. 
23 
“The legislature, by the act of 1887, has attempted to solve the 
difficulty by providing an officer and making it his duty to distribute 
water according to the decrees rendered, without reference to the water 
district in which such decrees are to be found. As we have said, the 
act does not attempt to make such decrees conclusive as between the 
various districts, but, in effect, it provides that until the courts shall 
determine otherwise in some appropriate proceeding, the superintendent 
shall treat the decrees as prima facie correct and distribute water ac¬ 
cordingly. We believe this regulation is fairly within the police power 
of the state, as defined in the case of White v. The High Line C. & R. 
Co., supra, and that it violates no constitutional provision; the effect 
being only to require the distribution of water in a certain way until 
such time as the rights of the parties can be definitely ascertained 
and adjudicated.” 
Again, in the case of The Lower Latham Ditch Company 
vs. The Louden Irrigation Canal Company, decided March 5, 
1900, reported in 60 Pac. Rep. 629, it was held that the plaintiff 
having priorities in water district No. 2 from the South Platte 
river was entitled to a decree requiring the water officials to 
protect its priority, if necessary, at the expense of junior pri¬ 
orities, from the Big Thompson river, in water district No. 4. 
In view of the rule of priority in time giving the better 
right, the statutes and the mdicial decisions, it must now be 
regarded as beyond controversy that one of the principal duties 
of the superintendent of irrigation is, without fear or favor, to 
issue such orders as will enforce senior rights in one district, 
when they cannot otherwise be supplied, by cutting down the 
supply of junior rights in other districts on tributary streams. 
In connection with this duty of a superintendent of irriga¬ 
tion some discretion must be exercised in determining to what 
particular water commissioner orders shall be directed, where 
there are many tributaries supplying the same main stream, hav¬ 
ing in view the location of the particular ditch needing relief, 
and the location of junior ditches from which its needs may be 
supplied. The prime duty of the superintendent is to furnish 
water to the senior appropriator in the main stream needing it. 
It may be that such senior appropriator is needing water at a 
time when thirty different juniors are enjoying water under 
several tributaries of the main stream and in several districts. 
In theory, the latest appropriation should be the first cut down, 
but if, in fact, that appropriator is forty or fifty miles away, and 
another junior is within a few miles, relief can best be given by 
depriving the junior on the nearest tributary. In practice, the 
latter course usually will be found to be necessary. The super¬ 
intendent in such cases may be able to supply the needs of the 
senior appropriator by reducing to some extent a large number of 
juniors, thereby interfering less violently with the regular dis¬ 
tribution of any particular district. 
Another matter worthy of special note in this connection 
which must be considered by the superintendent of irrigation. 
