Opinion ID: 2633010
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Revised Application Was a New Application Because It Differed Dramatically from the Original Application

Text: ¶24 Western Water asserts that the Revised Application was not a new application because the modifications in the Revised Application were only differences of deletion and subtraction. It is true that some changes are permitted without republication. For example, in Whitmore v. Welch, this court upheld the State Engineer's decision to allow a change in the point of return without requiring republication. 201 P.2d 954, 959-60 (Utah 1949). The practical effect of the change in point of return reduced the applicant's request for water. We reasoned that because the change was a smaller subset of the original application, the initial publication gave notice as to any amount or distance included in the total. Id. at 960. ¶25 Comparing the alteration allowed in Whitmore to the alteration requested by Western Water demonstrates the factual gulf between the two cases and illustrates why Whitmore is not controlling here. In Whitmore, the change discussed by the court moved the point of return 2000 feet up river so as not to impair other rights. In contrast, the Revised Application reduced Western Water's appropriation request by almost 30,000 acre-feet (from 86,000 acre-feet to 56,880 acre-feet of beneficial use) and deleted pumping stations, wells, pipelines, diversions, and storage facilities, including the Cedar Valley Storage and Recovery System, which the Original Application defined as the heart of its plan. Under the Revised Application, the estimated cost changed from $100 million to $39.8 million. Finally, Western Water did not explain how these drastic reductions would change or affect the proposed uses to which the water would be put, perhaps because that would call attention to the fact that a change in purpose would require republication. Cf. Utah Code Ann. § 73-3-6(2) (After publication . . . the state engineer may authorize amendments or corrections that involve a change of point of diversion, place, or purpose of use of water, only after republication of notice to water users. (emphasis added)). ¶26 Accepting Western Water's argument that the Revised Application constituted a subset of the Original Application and was therefore appropriate for reconsideration without filing a new application would subvert the entire appropriation process. The Original Application was vast. Covering 288,107 acre-feet in various alternative plans, it requested water from virtually every source in the Salt Lake and Utah Valley watersheds. Almost any rational request would be a smaller subset of the Original Application. The Revised Application was not a specific request for water. It was a vague, amorphous suggestion that Western Water would take a lesser amount of water than was requested in the Original Application, all the way down to a single well. In essence, the Revised Application asked the State Engineer to root around for unappropriated water and then award that water to Western Water. Such an approach does not fall within our jurisprudence favoring a liberal policy toward application approval. See, e.g., Searle v. Milburn Irrigation Co., 2006 UT 16, ¶ 38, 133 P.3d 382 (explaining that a liberal policy toward application approval was mandated by the legislature because the value of allowing experimentation cannot be understated); E. Bench Irrigation Co. v. State, 300 P.2d 603, 605-06 (Utah 1965) (concluding that applications to appropriate water must be approved if the [state] engineer finds reason to believe that some rights under such application may be acquired without impairing vested rights of others). Holding otherwise would shift the burden of finding unappropriated water from the parties requesting appropriation to the State Engineer. Cf. Searle, 2006 UT 16, ¶ 49 (holding that in the context of a change application, the burden of persuasion remains on the applicant throughout the application process). While the law encourages experimentation and beneficial use, it does not encourage private parties to use the limited resources of the State Engineer to find unappropriated water for them under the guise of the State Engineer's duty to approve applications if they meet the requirements of section 73-3-8.