PRIA, Government Policy, Made Personal

Summary

Protects water-use rights that were first taken and used and are accepted by local customs, laws, or court decisions for things like mining, farming, or manufacturing. People who already have those water rights and the right to build ditches or canals can keep and use them. If someone building a ditch or canal damages a settler’s use of public land, the builder must pay for the damage. Any land patents, preemption claims, or homesteads are subject to those existing water rights and related ditch or reservoir rights.

Title 43, §661

Public Lands, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

Whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same; and the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes herein specified is acknowledged and confirmed; but whenever any person, in the construction of any ditch or canal, injures or damages the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage. All patents granted, or preemption or homesteads allowed, shall be subject to any vested and accrued water rights, or rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights, as may have been acquired under or recognized by this section.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification R.S. § 2339 derived from act

July 26, 1866, ch. 262, § 9, 14 Stat. 253. R.S. § 2340 derived from act

July 9, 1870, ch. 235, § 17, 16 Stat. 218. This section is also classified to section 51 and 52 of Title 30, Mineral Lands and Mining.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Amendment of Section;

Savings Provision

Pub. L. 94–579, title VII, § 706(a), Oct. 21, 1976, 90 Stat. 2793, provided that, effective on and after Oct. 21, 1976, insofar as applicable to the issuance of rights-of-way over, upon, under, and through the public lands and lands in the National Forest System, this section is amended to read as follows: “Whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same. “All patents granted, or preemption or homesteads allowed, shall be subject to any vested and accrued water rights as may have been acquired under or recognized by this section.” Such amendment not to be construed as terminating any valid lease, permit, patent, etc., existing on Oct. 21, 1976, see section 701 of Pub. L. 94–579, set out as a note under section 1701 of this title. Section as Unaffected by Submerged Lands ActProvisions of this section as not amended, modified or repealed by the Submerged Lands Act, see section 1303 of this title.

§661 Appropriation of Waters on Public Lands; Rights of Way for Canals and Ditches