Opinion ID: 2451247
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rights Under Article 7519a

Text: We next must determine the nature of the rights which the permittees own and the inherent conditions upon those rights. Permittees argue and the court of civil appeals has held that the two permits are vested rights which may not be terminated by proceedings under Article 7519a because such rights may not be nullified by a retroactive law. Permittees' argument that their grants of water permits were grants of vested rights is supported by a number of Texas precedents. Justice McClendon in Clark v. Briscoe Irr. Co., 200 S.W.2d 674 (Tex.Civ.App.1947, no writ) thoroughly examined the law of appropriation rights and directly held that a water right, when acquired and perfected, constituted a vested right to the use of the water appropriated. Similar holdings have been made in State Board of Water Engineers v. Slaughter, 382 S.W.2d 111 (Tex.Civ.App.1964, writ ref. n. r. e., 407 S.W.2d 467 [Tex.1966]); Reeves v. Pecos County Water Improvement Dist. No. 1, 299 S.W. 224 (Tex.Com. App.1927, holding approved); City of Anson v. Arnett, 250 S.W.2d 450 (Tex.Civ. App.1952, writ ref. n. r. e.). Rights to riparian waters have been held to be vested rights. Board of Water Engineers v. McKnight, 111 Tex. 82, 229 S.W. 301 (1921). Rights to waters which were acquired under the law of Mexico are vested rights. San Antonio River Authority v. Lewis, 363 S.W.2d 444 (Tex.1963). In our opinion, a matured appropriation right to water is a vested right. However, the right which one obtains by a water permit for appropriated waters is a right which is limited to beneficial and non-wasteful uses. This is made clear by the statute which defines the right which is granted: Art. 7542. Water right defined. A water right is the right to use the water of the State when such use has been acquired by the application for water under the statutes of this State and for the purposes stated in this chapter. Such use shall be the basis, the measure and the limit to the right to use water of the State at all times, not to exceed in any case the limit of volume to which the user is entitled and the volume which is necessarily required and can be beneficially used for irrigation or other authorized uses. (Emphasis added) By definition, the permittees received only the right to use the water for beneficial purposes. 1 Clark, Waters and Water Rights, Sec. 39.3 at 241 (1967); Hutchins, Selected Problems in the Law of Water Rights in the West 27 (U. S. Dep't of Agriculture Misc. Pub. No. 418, 1942); 1 Wiel, Water Rights in the Western States, Sec. 277 (3d ed. 1911). The State was at all times the owner of the corpus of the water covered by the two permits, subject only to the exhaustion of the corpus as a result of beneficial use. Article 7542, supra, in defining the water rights states that it is the right to use the water of the State. Article 7467 states that the waters of the ordinary flow and underflow and tides of every flowing river or natural stream, the storm, flood, or rain waters of every river or natural stream within the State are the property of the State, but the right to the use of the water may be acquired by appropriation. In Motl v. Boyd, 116 Tex. 82, 286 S.W. 458, 468 (1926), this court held that the title to public navigable streams is in the State in trust for the public. The permittees did not acquire the right of non-use of water. Common to the law of the western arid regions and of appropriation law generally is the idea that non-use of appropriated waters is a waste of the water. Once water is appropriated, its availability to another user is reduced or defeated, and if the permittee does not use a substantial portion of it the water will run unused into the sea. A workable system of appropriated waters has produced the general rule that the beneficial use of waters is the conservation of the resource, whereas, the non-use of appropriated waters is equivalent to waste. 1 Clark, Waters and Water Rights, Sec. 55.3 (1967); Hutchins, The Texas Law of Water Rights 220 (1961); 2 Kinney, Irrigation and Water Rights, Secs. 911, 912 (2d ed. 1912); 1 Wiel, Water Rights in the Western States, Secs. 478, 481 (3d ed. 1911); El Paso County Water Imp. Dist. No. 1 v. El Paso, 133 F.Supp. 894, 904-905 (W.D.Tex.1955), modified, 243 F.2d 927 (5th Cir. 1957), cert. denied, 355 U.S. 820, 78 S.Ct. 26, 2 L.Ed.2d 36. Inherently attached to a permit to appropriate waters, therefore, is the duty that the appropriator will beneficially use the water. The State, in administering its water resources, is under a constitutional duty to conserve water as a precious resource and that duty is also inherent in the grant of a water permit. In 1917, Texas adopted Article XVI, Section 59, of the Texas Constitution, commonly called the Conservation Amendment. Naming waters specifically, the amendment declared that the conservation and preservation of natural resources are public rights and duties. It then ordered that the Legislature shall pass all such laws as may be appropriate thereto. The statutes with which we are here concerned were enacted as a part of that program for the development, preservation, and conservation of the State's natural resources. Clark v. Briscoe Irr. Co., 200 S.W.2d 674 (Tex.Civ.App.1947, no writ). By way of summary, the vested rights which the permittees held by force of the two water permits, were rights limited to the beneficial use of water. Permittees at no time were vested with the right of non-use of the water for an indefinite period of time. At all relevant times, the State had rights as the owner of the water. It also had a constitutional duty to preserve and conserve its water.