Public Regulation of Water Power in the United States and Europe

The law of water rights in the United States has been for the most part regulated by the several states, subject, however, to the power of Congress to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, (which includes the control of navigation and of navigable streams in the interest of commerce) and to the control of the United States over waters on public lands and rivers on the international boundaries. The laws of the several states show considerable variation; but in respect to the use of water power, they have until within a few years been based mainly on the protection of private rights and public safety, without establishing any public control for economic reasons. In the mountain and Pacific coast states there has been a large degree of public control in the interest of irrigation. Within recent years a greater realization of the importance of and public interest in water power has led to some significant legislation in some of the eastern and central states, notably in New York and Wisconsin. Under early English decisions, the ownership and control of land under navigable tidal waters were held to be vested in the Crown; while the beds of non-navigable streams above the tide were considered as private property. These early* decisions left undetermined the ownership of the beds of navigable streams above the reach of the tide (instances of this kind being rare in that country); but in early American cases the English law was understood to mean that nontidal rivers were not public waters nor legally navigable