British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 392

CHAPTER X.

Provided that nothing in this paragraph shall affect any right of, or connected with, usage of water except as provided by Ordinance enacted in accordance with this Article.

(2) Provision may be made by Ordinance for the control and for the beneficial and economic use of water vested in the High Commissioner by this Article, and (without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) any such Ordinance may provide for the drainage of land and for the prevention of damage by floods.

(3) Provision may be made by Ordinance for the supervision over, and for the control of the exploitation of, the underground sources of water supply in Palestine".

ll. The Irrigation (Surface Water} Ordinance would operate in this way. Upon the declaration of an area as an "irrigation area", a judicial investigation of claims to existing water rights would be made by a Water Settlement Officer whose findings would be subject to appeal to a special judicial tribunal. Whilst the inquiry as to the rights is proceeding, another inquiry - a technical inquiry - would be going on; the Irrigation Officer would be investigating the amount of water available in the area, the land which has to be and which could be irrigated, and the use which might be made of the available water. From the two inquiries, a Register of Title to Water would be drawn up, and in this a specified volume of water would be attached to each specified parcel. In conferring such titles, the guiding principle would be that every owner of a water right is entitled to continue to use the quantity of water to which the right relates, provided that the quantity in question is not excessive having regard to the area of land irrigated by it. Beneficial use is prescribed as the has is, the measure and the limit of every title in water. The Ordinance provides for another appeal at this stage, if any person interested objects to any of the titles, as technically expressed in the Water Register.

12. The procedure prescribed in this draft Ordinance is closely parallel to that observed under the relevant law of' the State of Wyoming, where the difficulty of dealing with pre-existing rights was also experienced. That law provides for a survey both of water resources and of water rights and for the compilation from them of a register of appropriations. In Wyoming, the State engineers then record an order establishing the several priorities of right to the use of the water and the amounts of the appropriations of the several people claiming such rights. In recording this order, regard is had to the general principle that no water right can extend to a volume in excess of that which can be beneficially utilised, and no water right can be detached from the land for which it is acquired, without loss of priority.

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