Show QUERY REGARDING WAIVA WAITER A correspondent ID D S 11 writing from clover tooele thoele county on the ath dinst propounds the following has a recently organized irrigating district a right to claim and appropriate prop water that springs up below its dividing dam said yater water having been used by other parties for twenty years without any person or persons having laid claim to said water dersons during this period can said water be taken from original users without their consent if the water ater springing up below the 11 dividing dam flows from a natural fountain then thea it belongs to the person or persons who first appropriated it is their property as f fully ally and in the same sense as is the land maex the own owl and irrigate with it and they cannot I 1 lawfully a be deprived of it without their consent this thib statement of ownership aj applies plies to that portion of the water flowing from the natural source which they have appropriated thus if they put to an actual use half of the water flowing from a spring only that half is ia theirs and the other half belongs to the parties first appropriating it but if the persons referred to by our correspondent appropriated all of the water flowing from a certain source then it all belongs to them and no part of it can lawfully lie be taken from them without their consent any more than a portion of their f farming arming land can be if the water referred to by ID D 8 11 is seepage from a canal the ease case may wear a different aspect but the law in relation to it could not be safely stated without f ull full information relative to the facts the rule by which to the ownership of water is simple it belongs to the first appropriator or his successors or assigns it is subject to sale transfer and inheritance the same as other property real or personal A newly organized irrigating district or company must either obtain water for its use from so some me natural source sot not previously utilized or it must purchase water from those whose title to the same is based upon prior appropriation |