Call
Also called: river call, placing a call
A senior right holder's demand that junior upstream users stop diverting so the senior right can be satisfied.
When flow drops below what the senior rights on a stream are entitled to, a senior holder places a call. The state water official administering that reach then curtails junior diversions upstream, in reverse order of seniority, until the senior right is made whole.
The call is where prior appropriation stops being a filing cabinet and starts being enforcement. Knowing the historical call record on a reach — how often calls happen and how far up the priority list they reach — is the most direct measure of whether a given right actually delivers water.
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