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Serenity now! |
We;re looking at building a home in a very rural setting, and, being the city slickers we are, know nothing of water rights. Some properties have water rights, others don't. Can I assume without water rights, I won't be able to dig a well? What else do I need to know about water rights? Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice - pull down your pants and slide on the ice. ʘ ͜ʖ ʘ | ||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process  |
It can be very complicated. I don't know about Utah. I would expect that the lack of water rights on the property would be noted on a title report. Ordinarily, water rights are included in the bundle of rights one enjoys as owner of fee simple absolute, which the owner can convey away, as with other rights. Maybe there is sime statute unique to Utah. I'd start by asking at the title company. Unfortunately, I must also warn you that title searches may or may not reflect the actual state of title. The industry used to work on a search, fund, disclose, except, basis and spent money on accurate title plants and experienced searchers. There is some reason to believe that it is now done on a casualty basis, rather than spend all that money on needless accuracy and precision, just give it a shot and hope no claims arise before the property resells. "Trust but verify" has morphed into "verify and verify." There is another aspect of water right dealing with flowing streams but that is a whole nuther subject. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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| Conveniently located directly above the center of the Earth  |
Circa 1952 in Boise Idaho my dad bought a rural acre that had separate and special 'water rights' apart from ground water/wells. This was titled right to water from the canal a block away, that ran down a ditch system controlled and maintained (more or less) by the ditch rider....who was employee of the Irrigation District, that had funded & developed a canal system circa 1900ish from the upper Boise River. That title was transferable and separate from the property title. After settling the estate it had been overlooked for a couple years after the sale of the land. An estate conservator spotted the issue & solved the potential issue. Although of little real importance since pavement of the neighborhood 40 years ago & the gradual transforming from 'farming' to 'lawns & gardens' by some on the ditch system, I was informed that particular kind of water-right title could have been accumulated for mischievous purposes. I spent much of my youth of the 50s & 60s heeding the demands of the head gates & use of 18" head of water for 12 hour period once a week during irrigation season. **************~~~~~~~~~~ "I've been on this rock too long to bother with these liars any more." ~SIGforum advisor~ "When the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change, then change will come."~~sigmonkey | |||
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| Freethinker |
That would be true in Colorado. Twenty plus years ago when we were looking for a house, a realtor made it clear that one development near his town was drawing well water that actually belonged to Pueblo (as I recall, one of those cities). The people there were warned that if the owner of the water wanted to, it could order everyone there to cease and desist “stealing” the water. Another time I was checking on the possible development of a lot that some friends bought. When I contacted a drilling company I was told that the lot had water rights, but only for restricted usage. Restrictions on usage are common and may prohibit such things as watering a lawn or garden, or washing one’s car. Water rights can even prohibit collecting and storing rain runoff from a roof to use for such purposes. ► 6.4/93.6 “ Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance.” — Immanuel Kant | |||
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Member |
True for Colorado. You must first obtain a permit for a well from the Water Court. Residential well is for water use inside the home. Not even to water your tomatoes. Unless they are in your house. Cheers, Doug in Colorado NRA Endowment Life Member | |||
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Member |
Every locality has it's own rules and regs on water it seems. Check with the officials in the area you want to build. _________________________ NRA Patron Life Member | |||
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| Serenity now! |
Just for clarification, were looking at eastern Idaho. Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice - pull down your pants and slide on the ice. ʘ ͜ʖ ʘ | |||
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Essayons |
@ 4x5: Are you talking about ground water only? And, if so, for a "culinary well" (ie: household use only), or for stock water and/or irrigation, too? You will likely be allowed to drill a culinary well, no problem, whether your property comes with its water rights intact or not. But if you plan to use the well for stock water and irrigation, then you're going to have to file a new ground water water right or buy an existing ground water water right. Or, are you looking for surface water rights for stock water and/or irrigation? If so, and if you can figure out how to get the water to your property (assuming a stream doesn't cross your property, or an existing canal isn't close by, so you'll have to either pump the water into a pipe or a ditch to get it to you) then you can file for new surface water rights or buy somebody else's established right. The problem with just filing a new water right is that it will be very "junior". Water rights work by order of seniority until all the water is used up. If your right is junior to somebody else's right and there isn't enough water to fill both rights, then the more senior right gets the water and the junior right gets to wait for rain. Some years there's lots of water and everybody with a right gets water. Some years there isn't much water and only the most senior rights get water. "Senior" water rights that you'd likely be competing with date back to the 1880s, when the Idaho Territorial Government began to issue/track water rights. So it'd have to be a pretty wet year for you to be certain to have water. FYI, here where I am in SE Idaho, surface water rights are currently worth about $100K/cubic foot/second -- in some SE Idaho communities it's worth MUCH more, in other places less. To give that some perspective, there are 40 "Miner's inches" in one cubic foot per second (a "Miner's Inch" is 1/40 of a cubic foot per second -- or roughly 673 gallons/hour) and it is generally thought that one miner's inch is sufficient to irrigate one acre (a gross, but useful, generalization subject to much fine-tuning due to variations in soil type, slope, delivery system (flood v.s. sprinkler), crop type, natural water table elevation, etc.). So to buy a relatively senior surface water right sufficient to reliably irrigate one acre should currently cost around $2,500 -- if you can find one for sale. Idaho is divided up into Water Districts. Not all of them are "active", The Marsh Valley, which is the water district that I'm in, is District 29-H, and was just activated this year. It is the legislature's goal to have them all active within the next few years. They're moving forward relentlessly with this -- you won't be able to escape the bureaucracy any more than I was. You need to find out what water district the property that you're considering is in, and contact the "Water Master" of that district. He will be able to fill you in on who has what water rights, and whether or not there is anyone in that area who has water rights for sale. Thanks, Sap | |||
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| Serenity now! |
Yikes! Sounds like a major hassle. We're just looking to build on about an acre, and would like to have a nice lawn. No animals or crops, except for a small garden, somewhere in the Idaho Falls to Rexburg area. Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice - pull down your pants and slide on the ice. ʘ ͜ʖ ʘ | |||
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| Member! |
There is still transferable canal water right in Boise. Mine and many homes in my neighborhood still use flood irrigation off the canal water if we want although many homes around us don't seem to use it anymore (apparently it's too hard to walk a couple of blocks up the street to open the water gates). That being said, even if the property owners between my home and the head gate don't use the irrigation water, they still must maintain flow access to it through their property whether they want to or not. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive.  |
Also, at least in Colorado, the County may have additional restrictions - such as: lot must be x-acres or larger in order to drill a well even if you have clear water rights from ages ago. This is, for instance, to keep someone from dividing up a 40acre parcel into 80 1/2acre lots and those folks subsequently digging 80 wells, which may strain the source/downriver folks. Be very, very sure all such barriers are clear before buying property with no municipal water. I know a handful of mountain folks with no well due to such things. Some neighborhoods may have shared/community wells, and some of those are fairly rudimentary and run the lines above ground, which is great in July but may mean no water in January... there are a bunch of - essentially - "summer only" cabins like this... Lastly, be aware that just because a neighborhood currently has good water access via wells, as-yet-undeveloped-but-already-approved new neighborhoods x-miles up stream (or neighborhoods where the gate and roads are in but it currently only has a few lots filled with houses so far, often big swanky master developments where lots are bigger and more expensive so the barrier to entry is higher and selling out the whole neighborhood and building all homes could take years, many years even, etc) could potentially use up / divert a significant portion of your water, and sometimes it may be several miles away as the crow flies. It would behoove you to be very familiar will all near-ish upstream neighborhoods and the state of such things. Personally, once I found an area I like, I'd speak in person with several folks in that and all adjacent and near-ish neighborhoods, especially people who have lived there for years, as they'll usually know the scuttlebutt and all associated realities, which an unscrupulous or uninformed seller may not know or divulge. Neighborhood association meetings, whether formal HOA or just loose groups, are good resources, and may keep minutes of their meetings, so it's possible to see if water access issues are or were being talked about... | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
My wife and I sometimes talk about moving out of "The Great Lakes State." This is one of the reasons we haven't: Water, water, everywhere, with many drop to use pretty much however we see fit. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Shit don't mean shit |
Also speaking from a Colorado perspective here... There's also a topic of "augmentation". In a nut shell, there are tables that describe how much water goes back into the ground. What doesn't go back, must be augmented. For example, a residential house with a septic system/leach field, 90% of the water will be returned to the earth. Owners must then find a way to augment (buy) the additional 10%. Horses are zero (**I think**), so you must augment 100% for those. I think a lawn is near zero as well (again, **I think**). Water issues can be very, very complex. A water lawyer will be a wise investment. | |||
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| Just because something is legal to do doesn't mean it is the smart thing to do. |
Some of you might find this interesting: http://naturalsociety.com/nest...hould-be-privatized/ Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking. | |||
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