Beyond doubt one of the most important decisions ever handed down by the Supreme Court of Oregon is the one returned January 5 touching on irrigation and water power law. In that decision, the court holds that the right for power and irrigation and power purposes is based on the law of appropriation and by the question of fact as to whether or not the water has been put to a beneficial use. The decision declares as very limited the rights of riparian owners where said riparian rights have been secured since 1877, allowing a riparian owner only what water is needed for “domestic” purposes. Any riparian owner who secures right to water beyond this must do so by complying with the law laid down for the appropriator.

In short, the decision bases the right to water on the question of prior appropriation rather than that of riparian right.

From the beginning of settlement in the West, there has been a struggle between those claiming water by prior appropriation and those claiming water by riparian right. The theory or law of “riparian right” handed down to us by the common law of England, is that a person owning land along a stream is entitled to have the water “flow as it was wont to flow” through the channel of the stream, undiminished in quantity and uncontaminated in quality. It was soon found that such a law was unwise and unjust in an arid country, and the courts soon evinced a tendency to modify the riparian right idea and to make the basis of right to water that of prior appropriation….

The decision just rendered is in line with this general tendency and is most wise.