Opinion ID: 2604584
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Issue Three: Irrigable/Irrigated

Text: DOE claims the trial court erred when it specified that YTID's entitlement was appurtenant to 27,900 irrigable acres. DOE claims state law requires the water to be appurtenant to land to which the water has beneficially been applied in the pasti.e., appurtenant to irrigated acres. Implicit in DOE's argument is the premise that YTID cannot irrigate any land which has not been irrigated historically. DOE's arguments are misplaced. When the trial court set YTID's right as appurtenant to 27,900 irrigable acres, it obtained that number of acres from reports which YTID had compiled and submitted to the BOR. The BOR uses the number of irrigable acres, among other things, as a figure against which to distribute the costs of operating the reclamation project. See 43 U.S.C. § 492. All irrigable lands within the district that are capable of using water from the project, whether or not they actually receive water, must pay a minimum fee toward operation costs. Id. As will be discussed below, the trial court's reliance on this category of irrigable acres is justified under RCW 90.03.380. An individual's water right is appurtenant to the land on which the water is beneficially used; and that individual cannot transfer the use of that water to different land without first requesting DOE approval. RCW 90.03.380. This requirement explains why a water right certificate must specify the land to which the right attaches. In an irrigation district, however, a water right can be transferred and applied to any land within the district without DOE oversight: A change in place of use by an individual water user or users of water provided by an irrigation district need only receive approval for the change from the board of directors of the district if the use of water continues within the irrigation district[.] RCW 90.03.380. Although an irrigation district's water right is legally appurtenant to the land on which the water is applied, the right can be shifted to any land in the district on which the water can be beneficially used i.e., the right can be applied to any irrigable acreage. For this reason, it makes sense for YTID's certificate to denote the number of acres to which the water can be applied beneficially. The number of acres irrigated each season may change from year to year; thus, the actual irrigated category is less useful than the irrigable category in denoting the extent of YTID's water right. In attacking the trial court's reference to irrigable acres, DOE implies that YTID's water right is somehow unlawfully enlarged by making the right appurtenant to irrigable acres rather than irrigated acres. DOE cites Department of Ecology v. Grimes, 121 Wash.2d 459, 852 P.2d 1044 (1993) and Neubert v. Yakima-Tieton Irrigation Dist., 117 Wash.2d 232, 814 P.2d 199 (1991), in support of its argument that the trial court should have focused on actual irrigated acres. Grimes and Neubert involved the court's analysis of whether the quantity of water used by a claimant was reasonable. Part of the reasonable use analysis requires the court to determine how much water is being used per acre of land, after which the court determines whether the amount applied per acre is useful (beneficial) or wasteful. It is obvious that a reasonable use analysis would have to rely on the irrigated acres category, and not the irrigable acres category. If the trial court applied a reasonable use analysis to establish YTID's water right, it would have to base that analysis on the number of actual irrigated acres. The issue revolving around the acreage category that is presented by this appeal, however, involves only the question of what category of acreage should be specified in YTID's water right certificate. As discussed above, it is more appropriate for the certificate to indicate irrigable acreage, since YTID can legally distribute its water over any irrigable acreage within the District.