After floods, upriver diversions were the next most vexing challenge. The Higgins Decree of 1900 divided the waters of the lower Sevier at Vermilion Dam and established a commission to adjudicate user rights. Other decisions followed until 1936, at which time the Cox Decree finally allotted all the water of the Sevier River. It is one of the most used rivers in the United States. Less than 1 percent, or 44,840 acre-feet, of the total precipitation is not consumed. Consumption is about 1,100,000 acre-feet annually.
Jay M. Haymond