George Sutherland

“ Expenditures necessary to construct an irrigation system and put it in condition to furnish and properly to distribute a supply of water are chargeable to construction: but, when the irrigation system is completed, expenditures made to maintain it as an efficient going concern, and to operate it effectively to the end for which it was designed are, at least generally, maintenance and operating expenses. ”

“ The fact that the need of drainage for the district lands, already existing or foreseen, had been supplied, and the cost thereof charged to all the water users as a part of the original construction, by no means compels the conclusion that an expenditure of the same character, the necessity for which subsequently developed as an incident of operation, is not a proper operating charge. The same kind of work under one set of facts may be chargeable to construction and under a different set of facts may be chargeable to maintenance and operation. ”

“ The irrigation system is a unit, to be, and intended to be, operated and maintained by the use of a common fund, to which all the lands under the system are required to contribute ratably, without regard to benefits specifically and directly received from each detail to which the fund is from time to time devoted. ”