I suspect many of our city-dwelling and east of the Mississippi FR friends are unaware of the seriousness of water rights issues in the west.
We just spent over $25,000 to obtain water rights for a pond on our property which is not over 70’ in diameter, and has been there for over 30 years.
Once, a few years ago, I visited an old coffee plantation outside of Ponce, Puerto, Rico that was powered by an iron turbine manufactured in West Point N.Y. in 1847, and a 30 foot overshot water wheel. Surprisingly, the stream which fed the turbine and the wheel was only about a foot wide and a foot deep, but it powered a generator, a coffee mill, and a host of other machinery. It was all beautifully maintained and in perfect working order, but it had not been operated since around 1900. Apparently, under Spanish law the owner of the plantation had the right to use the water from the stream that ran through his property, but when Puerto Rico fell under U.S. sovereignty, that changed, and the plantation had to shut down.
It's not quite the MIssissippi ~ it's the 100 degree line that makes the difference.