State and National Water Laws, with Detailed Statement of the Oregon System of Water Titles

In all irrigation, power, and other developments involving the diversion and use of water, much attention is given by the engineer to a detailed study of the available water supply. Whether or not legal title to the necessary water can be secured, is a matter usually left by the engineer for the consideration of the project's legal adviser. The lawyer, as a rule, is unfamiliar with the units for measuring water, knows nothing·as to the effects on the stream of diversions or of return seepage, and can make but little use of elaborate hydrographs and water supply data prepared by the engineer. He confines his studies strictly to the legal phases of the problem as he understands them, assuming that the engineer will attend to what he considers the technical part of the work. The inevitable result is that the promoter, who usually understands only the financial end,of the project and is relying on his engineer and legal adviser to do their part; suddenly awakens to the fact that he has expended a large amount of money on a project where the legal title to a part or all of the water supply is in some one else.