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Whose Water Is It? Private Rights And Public Authority Over Reclamation Project Water, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

The American West, for the most part, is an arid place. The average annual precipitation in the seventeen western states is twenty-one inches, but in many places is far less. Often there is too little water to go around, even in places such as Oregon that are ommonly believed to be wet.' Water is valuable everywhere because it is indispensable; it is even more precious in the West because it is scarce.