Squaw Creek Irrigation District v. Mamero

214 P. 889, 107 Or. 291, 1923 Ore. LEXIS 159
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedMay 1, 1923
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 214 P. 889 (Squaw Creek Irrigation District v. Mamero) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Squaw Creek Irrigation District v. Mamero, 214 P. 889, 107 Or. 291, 1923 Ore. LEXIS 159 (Or. 1923).

Opinion

McCOURT, J.

Plaintiff is an irrigation district. It prosecutes this appeal from a decree dismissing its complaint, in which it prayed for a decree restraining defendants C. N. Sorenson, Water-master, and Percy A. Cupper, State Engineer, from distributing the waters of Squaw Creek, Deschutes County, in violation of the alleged rights of plaintiff to the use of the waters of that stream.

Besides the officials above named, a number of individuals and corporations were named as defendants, all of whom made default. No further notice need be taken of the defaulting parties.

When the cause was at issue, it was heard and determined by the Circuit Court upon an agreed statement of facts.

The irrigation district (plaintiff) was organized subsequent to 1914 by the water users from the ditches, canals and flumes of the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company, a corporation formed to construct the aforesaid ditches, canals and flumes for general irrigation purposes, under the act of the legislative session of 1891 (Laws 1891, p. 52 et seq.). To obtain its water supply, the corporation appropriated and diverted water from Squaw Creek, a tributary of the Deschutes River. Upon its organization, plaintiff acquired the irrigation works and water rights of the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company.

[294]*294Prior to May 1, 1911, a proceeding was initiated before the Board of Control (now State Water Board), for the purpose of determining the relative rights of the various claims to the waters of said Squaw Creek, as authorized by Chap. 216, Laws 1909 (Sections 5731-5767, Or. L.). The Squaw Creek Irrigation Company appeared in that proceeding, and filed a statement of its claims to the use of the waters of Squaw Creek, and submitted proof in support of those claims.

The findings and order made by the Board of Control in that proceeding were appealed to the Circuit Court, where, on May 1, 1911, a decree was entered fixing and determining the relative rights to the use of the waters of Squaw Creek for irrigation and domestic purposes, and thereafter on September 19, 1914, the same court, in the same proceeding, made and entered its supplemental decree, fixing, making and allowing a further additional and final determination and adjudication of the rights to the use of the waters of that stream for irrigation and domestic purposes. References hereafter made to the decree will include the supplemental decree given and made in that proceeding.

The decree awarded to the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company two water rights material to this suit, one with a priority of the year 1895, entitling the corporation to 125.66 second-feet of water for the irrigation of 6,283 acres; and the other with a priority of the year 1904 and of sufficient extent to irrigate about 4,000 additional acres. Each water right was declared by the decree to be appurtenant to definitely described lands.

Of the water to which the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company was entitled under its priority of 1904, [295]*295the decree declared a quantity sufficient to irrigate twenty-five acres of land, owned by Yiola Arnold, and situated in southwest quarter of northeast quarter of section 18, township 15 S., K>. 11 E., W. M., to be appurtenant to the tract described.

During the irrigation season of 1921, plaintiff, as the successor in interest of the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company, was not using the maximum quantity of water allotted to it under its priority of 1895 upon the lands to which the same was declared appurtenant by the decree. Plaintiff undertook to use sufficient of that water to irrigate the above-described lands of Yiola Arnold.

The defendant C. N. Sorenson commanded plaintiff to discontinue the use of water diverted to plaintiff under its 1895 priority right on the lands of Yiola Arnold, and thereupon shut off from the ditch of plaintiff an amount of water equal to the amount thus attempted to be conducted by plaintiff upon the lands of Yiola Arnold, and caused a like amount of water to be distributed to other lands that had rights prior to 1904 and subsequent to 1895 to the use of waters from Squaw Creek.

This suit was commenced to restrain the action of the water-master, and to compel the state officials in charge of the distribution of the waters of Squaw Creek, to distribute to plaintiff 125.66 second-feet of water under its priority of 1895, before turning out or diverting any water for the use of land owners having water rights entitling them to the use of the waters of Squaw Creek under priority dates subsequent to 1895 and prior to 1904.

In support of its claim to injunctive relief, plaintiff contends that, notwithstanding the provision of the decree that the water to which it is entitled is ap[296]*296purtenant to a definitely described body of land, it has the right, limited only by the maximum quantity of water decreed to its predecessor in interest, to supply water for irrigation to all persons whose lands lie adjacent to, or within reach of, the line of its ditches, canals and flumes, in the same manner and to the same extent as its predecessor might have done while completing and perfecting its appropriation of the waters of Squaw Creek.

Defendants, on the other hand, contend that the use of water to which plaintiff is entitled under the decree, is restricted to the lands to which the same was declared to be appurtenant; that the beneficial use upon which plaintiff’s water rights rest and the places of such use were fixed by the decree; that the attempt of plaintiff to use the water elsewhere constitutes legal waste of those waters, which it is within the authority of defendants to prevent.

Approximately seventy claims, including that of the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company, to the use of the waters of Squaw Creek, were recognized, determined and adjudicated by the decree. The decree, conforming to the directions of the statute (Section 5754, Or. L.), declared as to the water right adjudged to each party, the extent,- the priority, amount, place of use and the specific tracts of land to which it was appurtenant.

The Squaw Creek Irrigation Company did not irrigate any lands of its own; it supplied water for purposes of irrigation and domestic use to about ninety persons, firms and corporations, whose lands were adjacent to, or - within reach of, its ditches, canals and flumes, upon payment of charges therefor. Accordingly the decree set forth the names of the several users of water, and in each instance, de[297]*297scribed the specific tract upon which the water was used, and declared the water so used to be appurtenant to that land.

At the time the decree of May 1, 1911, was entered, the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company had not completed its said appropriation of 1895, by applying all the water which it claimed thereunder to a beneficial use. Thirty-two persons to whom it intended to supply water, had not prepared their lands to receive water, and had not used water thereon. Likewise, the water right it claimed under its appropriation of 1904 had not been perfected. The lands of twenty-nine proposed water users thereunder, had not been prepared for irrigation, and water had not been applied thereto.

To meet that situation and allow the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company to perfect its rights to the waters claimed under its appropriation, a provisional decree was entered, allowing it until October 1, 1912, to complete the same and apply the water claimed thereunder to the intended beneficial use.

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Bluebook (online)
214 P. 889, 107 Or. 291, 1923 Ore. LEXIS 159, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/squaw-creek-irrigation-district-v-mamero-or-1923.