Opinion ID: 886045
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Water Law in the American West: The Doctrine of Prior Appropriation

Text: ¶ 9 Miners in California developed a water use system as an alternative to the riparian water system prevalent in England and the eastern United States. While riparians allowed owners of land abutting the water source to control it, the more arid climes of the American West required a different approach. Prior appropriation, adapting flexibly to the needs of a developing society, allowed diversion to a distant location and simply required use of the water for a beneficial purpose. Western states adopted the miners' customs through both court decisions and codification, and the doctrine of prior appropriation became the law of the western states. A. Stone, Selected Aspects of Montana Water Law 7 (1978); Christine A. Klein, The Constitutional Mythology of Western Water Law, 14 Va. Envtl. L.J. 343, 347-48 (1995). ¶ 10 The common law elements of a valid appropriation are intent, notice, diversion and application to beneficial use. However, in Montana, as in many western states, the flexibility of the prior appropriation doctrine has allowed acquisition of the right to use a specific amount of water through application of the water to a beneficial use. A. Stone, Montana Water Law (1994). Judicial opinions and scholarly commentators have repeatedly stated the rule that application to a beneficial use is the touchstone of the appropriation doctrine. See, e.g., A. Stone, Selected Aspects of Montana Water Law 30 (1978); Thomas v. Guiraud (1883), 6 Colo. 530, 533 ([t]he true test of appropriation of water is the successful application thereof to the beneficial use designed, and the method of diverting or carrying the same, or making such application, is immaterial).