Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130366
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 08:25:20+00:00

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ESTABLISHMENT OF THE RIPARIAN DOCTRINE IN THE WEST 197 than to recover such damages as he can actually prove.179 But in 1966, the court said that:180 We think [these] cases have been misread. The appropriative rights [in these cases] seem to have been asserted by irrigation companies offering a public service. The court attached significance to the public benefit, to the appropriation project completed in good faith and at great cost, and to the tardy initiation of the riparian use. If the court went too far, the limitations themselves have remained. We reject the startling proposition [urged by the defendant appropriators] that equity sends every riparian proprietor packing. Defendants are private appropriators-not champions of the public interest.. . .The remedy rests on other considerations. The court concluded that the defendant appropriators should be enjoined for injury to a recognized riparian right where the harmful use was unreasonable with respect to the riparian proprietor. The court set forth criteria 'for determining such reasonableness as well as criteria for determining the appropriativeness of the injunction.181 Washington. -The riparian doctrine has been recognized repeatedly in the court decisions of Washington. The supreme court held that riparian rights existed in the arid as well as the humid parts of the State.182 However, the common law doctrine has been modified by limiting the riparian claimant's right as against appropriators to the quantity of water that can be used beneficially, either directly or prospectively, within a reasonable time on or in connection with riparian land.183 The supreme court's own appraisal of its decisions has been that the common law rule of riparian rights has been "stripped of some of its rigors,"184 and that the trend has been to restrict and narrow this doctrine. As a result, the advantage of position of riparian lands with reference to water rights has been materially reduced. Legislation enacted in 1967 provides that a riparian landowner who abandons or voluntarily fails, without sufficient cause, to divert or withdraw water to which he is entitled for 5 successive years shall relinquish the right to do so.185 ™McCook In. Water Power Co. v. Crews, 70 Nebr. 109, 96 N. W. 996 (1903), 102 N. W. 249 (1905); Cline v. Stock, 71 Nebr. 70, 98 N. W. 454 (1904), 102 N. W. 265 (1905). 180 Wasserburger v. Coffee, 180 Nebr. 147, 141 N. W. (2d) 738, 747 (1966). 1B1Id. at 746-748. For a critical discussion of this case, see Comment, "The Dual-System of Water Rights in Nebraska," 48 Nebr. L. Rev. 488, 497-498 (1969). 1B2Benton v. Johncox, 9 Wash. 576, 38 Pac. 147 (1894). 183Brown v. Chase, 125 Wash. 542, 549, 553, 217 Pac. 23 (1923); In re Alpowa Creek, 129 Wash. 9, 13, 224 Pac. 29 (1924); Proctor v. Sim, 134 Wash. 606, 616-619, 236 Pac. 114 (1925); In re Sinlahekin Creek, 162 Wash. 635, 640-641, 229 Pac. 649 (1931). For a greater restriction regarding navigable waters, see chapter 4 at note 133. iS4In re Alpowa Creek, 129 Wash. 9,13, 224 Pac. 29 (1924). 185 Wash. Laws 1967, ch. 233, Rev. Code § 90.14.170 (Supp. 1970).

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