Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130223
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 16:54:53+00:00

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54 CHARACTERISTICS OF WATERCOURSE water in gulches or ravines in times of freshets or melting of ice and snow.160 And the Oklahoma court speaks of a large quantity of water, "after heavy rain or after the melting of large bodies of snow."161 On the other hand, a natural watercourse was held to have been formed in Montana by waters flowing in a gulch with regularity from year to year in times of storms and melting snow, even though inconsiderable in quantity.162 In cases arising in several States of the Northwest, where winter snows accumulate in large quantities in the mountains, recognized sources of supply have been designated variously as spring rains and melting snows;163 rains and snows falling on the watersheds;164 and snow runoff in the spring.165 Of course, snow falls on mountains of the Southwest as well, but in large areas there in most years the precipitation is chiefly in the form of rain. As already noted, there are areas in which heavy rainstorms, followed by torrential runoff or flash floods, are not uncommon. In other regions, the rainstorms, although productive of considerable runoff, are normally less violent. Whatever the nature of the particular occurrence, high courts of the Southwest are liberal in their acceptance of these precipitation phenomena as definite and permanent supplies of water for watercourses. Thus, in Arizona, we have rains or snows falling on adjacent hills, whence their runoff flows down ravines or washes at irregular intervals;166 in New Mexico, surface water in a hilly region, seeking an outlet through a gorge or ravine during the rainy season, where the size of the stream is immaterial;167 arroyos that serve the purpose of drainageways during the rainy season, but are dry at other times.168 The Texas Supreme Court, in its decision in Hoefs v. Short, the locus of which was in an arid or semiarid region (Reeves County), handles the question of rainfall as a source of water supply with lucidity and good reasoning.169 Rain falling on the watershed of Barilla Creek from 1 to 22 times each year, in sufficient quantity to permit irrigation from the stream, was held to be a permanent source of water supply. The court went on to say that the watershed is permanent, the meteorological laws that cause the rain to fall there are permanent, and the streambed by which the waters reach the locality in controversy was to all intents and purposes permanent. But, said the court, still more convincing than these is the admitted fact that the rain does fall and 160Barnes v.Sabron, 10 Nev. 217, 236-237 (1875). 161 Chicago, R.I. & P.Ry. v. Groves, 20 Okla. 101, 117-118, 93 Pac. 755 (1908). 162 Popham v. Holloron, 84 Mont. 442, 447, 450-451, 275 Pac. 1099 (1929). 163 West v. Taylor, 16 Oreg. 165, 172, 13 Pac. 665 (1887); Wright v. Phillips, 111 Oreg. 420, 426, 272 Pac. 554 (1928). 164 RichlandsIn. Co. v. WestviewIrr. Co., 96 Utah 403, 418, 80 Pac. (2d) 458 (1938). 165 In re Johnson Creek, 159 Wash. 629, 630, 294 Pac. 566 (1930). 166 Globe v. Shute, 22 Ariz. 280, 289, 196 Pac. 1024 (1921). X67Jaquez Ditch Co. v. Garcia, 17 N. Mex. 160,161-164, 124 Pac. 891 (1912). 168 Martinez v. Cook, 56 N. Mex. 343, 349-350, 244 Pac. (2d) 134 (1952). Note the handling in this case of the United States Supreme Court decision rendered much earlier in Walker v. New Mexico & S.P.R.R., 165 U.S. 593, 600-605 (1897). 169 Hoefs v. Short, 114 Tex. 501, 506-507, 273 S. W. 785 (1925).

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