§321 Entry Right Generally; Extent of Right to Appropriate Waters

Summary

Any U.S. citizen or someone old enough who has filed to become a citizen can pay 25 cents an acre and swear in writing to the Interior Department official for the land district that they intend to reclaim up to one-half section (not more than 320 acres) by bringing water onto it within three years. The declaration must describe the land as precisely as possible. The right to use water for a 320-acre tract depends on a real earlier claim to that water and cannot exceed the amount actually taken and needed for irrigation. Any extra water, and water from non-navigable lakes or streams on public land, stays available for public use for irrigation, mining, and manufacturing, subject to existing rights. If, within three years, the person proves the land was reclaimed and pays an additional $1 per acre (up to 320 acres to one person), the government will issue a land patent. Except as allowed by a 1955 law, a person may make only one such entry. That entry can include one or more tracts that need not touch each other, but the total claimed must not exceed 320 acres and the pieces must be close enough to be managed as one economic unit under rules set by the Secretary of the Interior.