Prior-appropriation water rights

rdf:langString Prior-appropriation water rights

rdf:langString Stephen Grace

rdf:langString Each drop of rain falling through the sky has already been allocated to a user. Leave the hose running between rinses while you wash your car and you won't run afoul of the law; but if you gather a pailful of rainwater and pour on your tomato plant, look over your shoulder for a water cop. You will be preventing those raindrops from entering the watershed, depriving people downstream from the surrounding creeks and rivers of their rights to use their apportioned amounts of streamflow. The doctrine of prior appropriation comes crashing up against the imperative to conserve scarce water. Colorado made it legal for some homeowners to harvest rain and snow from their roofs. Tucson is encouraging its citizens to gather rainwater. Santa Fe made catchment devices mandatory for new dwellings. But, in Utah and Washington , harvesting raindrops is still a crime.

rdf:langString Prior appropriation: In water rights, the legal doctrine of prior appropriation holds that the first person to take a quantity of water from a water source for "beneficial use" (agricultural, industrial or household) has the right to continue to use that quantity of water for that purpose. 78 Am. Jur. 2d Waters § 355 (2021). These individuals are the senior users. Senior users do not "own" the water source. Rather, they have the right to use the water source within the limitations of a state's established prior appropriation laws.Douglas County v. Sedalia Water and Sanitation District, 343 P.3d 16 (Colo. 2015).