Opinion ID: 1192074
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the trial court used the appropriate method in allocating the rights to use water from crandall springs ii and sorensen creek.

Text: Silverstein asserts that the trial court used the wrong method in allocating the rights to use water from Crandall Springs II and Sorensen Creek. We disagree. The enigma the trial court faced was that the Rexburg Decree awarded to Foster's predecessor in interest the right to use on five parcels of land 3.6 cfs of water from three different sources. The decree did not allocate the right among the three sources or the five parcels. In making the allocation in this case, the trial court relied on the method used in Crow v. Carlson, 107 Idaho 461, 690 P.2d 916 (1984). Crow dealt with a somewhat different problem of allocation than the issue presented to the trial court here. In Crow, this Court considered the allocation of the right to use an amount of water on 240 acres of land. The owner of eighty acres of this land sought the use of a portion of the water rights awarded for the 240 acres. The Court instructed the trial court to divide the water right between the current owners of the 240 acres in proportion to the land owned by each. Here, in awarding Foster .74 cfs with an 1899 priority, the trial court accepted the suggestion of the Idaho Department of Water Resources to apply Crow in the following fashion: 1. Without specifying how much water was awarded from any particular source, the Rexburg Decree awarded Foster's predecessor in interest 3.6 cfs from three separate sources, including Crandall Springs. 2. Without specifying how much water might be used on each parcel, the Rexburg Decree awarded these rights to apply to parcels that totalled 195.42 acres. The forty acres that is now owned by Foster is adjacent to Crandall Springs II and Sorensen Creek. The remaining 155.42 acres were further north and could not be serviced by Crandall Springs II and Sorensen Creek. 3. The forty acres that Foster owns represents 20.46 percent of the 195.42 acres. Multiplying 3.6 cfs times 20.46 percent allocates .74 cfs to Foster. Although there are distinctions between the circumstances here and the circumstances in Crow and in the cases upon which Crow relied, we conclude that the method approved in these decisions is applicable to the allocation here. The Court in Crow cited Russell v. Irish, 20 Idaho 194, 118 P. 501 (1911), which dealt with the allocation of water rights that had been acquired for eighty acres. Twenty of those acres were conveyed without reference to the water rights that accompanied the conveyance. In Russell, this Court said: [I]t is well established that a water right is an appurtenance to the land on which it has been used and will pass by conveyance of the land. A division of the land would divide the appurtenant water right in the same proportion as it divided the land. In this case the twenty acres of land was deeded together with the appurtenances. This conveyance would carry with it the water right appurtenant to the land at the time of the conveyance, unless it was specifically reserved in the deed or it could be clearly shown that it was known to both parties that the water right was not intended to be conveyed. It is conceded here that the thirty-inch water right had been used in reclaiming the entire eighty-acre tract of land. It had become appurtenant to the whole tract and not to a specific portion thereof or alone to the sixty acres retained by the respondent. Id. at 198-99, 118 P. at 502 (emphasis in original; citations omitted). In Hunt v. Bremer, 47 Idaho 490, 493, 276 P. 964, 965 (1929), the Court cited Russell and stated: A division of a tract of land to which water is appurtenant, without segregating or reserving the water right, works a division of such water right in proportion as the land is divided. There are two distinctions in the circumstances here from those in Hunt, Russell and Crow. The forty acres that Foster now owns were not divided from the remaining 155.42 acres that Foster's predecessor owned at the time of the Rexburg Decree; this parcel was separate from the others at the time the water rights were awarded in the Rexburg Decree. Only the water from Crandall Springs II and Sorensen Creek were appurtenant to the forty acres that Foster now owns. However, we are left with the puzzle of how to determine what water rights were made appurtenant by the Rexburg Decree to the forty acres now owned by Foster. Foster's predecessor in interest, who testified at the hearing that led to the Rexburg Decree, indicated that two inches of water per acre was the appropriate amount necessary to irrigate all the parcels he owned that the three sources specified in the Rexburg Decree irrigated. Therefore, it is logical that the Rexburg Decree awarded the water rights to Foster's predecessor in interest from three sources for use on five parcels in proportion to the number of acres in each parcel. This leads us to the same proportional method of allocating the water rights the Rexburg Decree awarded to Foster's predecessor in interest as the method specified in Crow. Although our rationale is different, the result is the same.