The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1920-06-11
TREASURE STATE FARM AND LIVESTOCK
Needed Improvements IN the Montana
Irrigation Ln1Us
Smith, FarnL
two or more offices within each

two or more offices within each
county.
Even these scattered records are
incomplete, because the present irri-
cation law does not make it obliga-
tory to file any record at all. There
are under the present laws three diff
ferent methods of procedure. for the
initiation of water rights-by benefit
cial use without any record whatever,
by posting and filing notice of appro-
priation, or by applying to the court
for supplemental rights on streams
that have been already decreed. This
; is another evident cause of confusion
and should be remedied by reducing
all water appropriations to one sys-
tenn, as is done in most other states.
On most of the streams of this
state, the recorded appropriations
amount to several times the supply
of water actually available, and as
there is no provision made for keep
ing the records up to date by the eli
mination of abandoned and forfeited
rights, the records are of little value
and are often misleading and worse
than useless. Under the irrigation
laws of Wyoming and other states,
the records of one central office show
all valid water rights up to date for
each stream of the state.
The Montana system makes it the
duty of every water user to defend
his right as against other users, and
provides for no official administra-
ton of the waters of the state. When
trouble arises it is up to the water
user to fight out his own case, either
in the field or in court, always at !
great loss and expense, and when |
adjudication by court is finally ac-
compished, the matter is still unset |
tied and always be again renewed and |
thrown into court, so that no water
user is ever certain of his rights, or
ever free from the necessity of go
ing to further trouble and expense
to protect himself.
1t is generally assured that a de-
cree of court gives some sort of Sc
curity to water title. This however
is often only a delusion, in the light
of actual facts and statistics. On
many streams of the state, court de-
crees have been entered for several
times the available water supply of
the stream, and often for more water {
than can be beneficially used. Cases |
are known where years and years of {
very costly litigation has finally re-
suited in DEGREES no more satisfac-
tory to the farmers than the original |
that started the trouble. A {
case recently came to light where the '
rights to a certain stream were bit t
,erly fought out through three courts {
md decree finally entered before it e
vas discovered that the same case i
lad been previously tried and de- 2
reed and the records thereof so we'll {
lied away among the dusty archives t
# the court house that they were u
Wholly forgotten and ignored in the a
alter trial of the case. S
The unsatisfactory condition as to t.
curt DEGREES in this state arises a
rom two principal CAUSES; in the n
irst place, the difficulty in getting
efore the court the actual and scien- Il
fife facts on which to base proper n
ecision, and in the second place, the d
till more vital fact that the average
istrict judge cannot be expected to h
e sufficiently familiar with the real II
cience of water distribution and use +,
} make a competent decision in k
uestions that ought to be settled by ol
'rigation experts. fe
ad situation above outlined is a a,
omplete change in the fundamental III
alter laws of this state, adopting a %
ystem by which the waters shall be n,
administered and adjudicated by q
oard of irrigation experts, and all in