[gcruse]

The law is that you own the mineral rights to your land, which includes water. If you strike oil on your land, and your neighbor doesn't put a well on his, assuming you share the same oil pool, you get all his oil. Where water is concerned, I think it is the craziest damned thing I ever heard of. As I recall, Picken's permits were approved.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Many years ago, I believe I heard of someone promoting a scheme to build a very large aqueduct on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies into Canada and the Artic and bring water down to the High Plains and use the Aquifer as a storage reservoir.
Frankly not a bad scheme!

At the time it was booed off the stage, as it would cost several billions of dollars at that time!

[Clinging Bitterly]

> The law is that you own the mineral rights to your land, which includes water.

Not necessarily. It can be quite complicated in the west, just who owns what water. If a landowner uses water in a way that depletes his neighbor's water, he could get hauled in to court. We elect commissioners by district around here just to deal with the issue of uses of water (and soil) that lies, for the most part, on and under private property.

One of my customers where I work has been going through such a thing. He has a small plot of land, basically a typical rural homesite, and up the hill from him on land owned by a timber company, is a spring that is his source of water. He owns a right to that source of water that is on land that he does not own. Over the past couple of years there have been activities on the timber company's land that have damaged the spring, or at least the water from it. His case has been rather complicated, because the timber company also owns a right to the same water. The water law issues that get brought up here are endless. Who is senior, who conveyed what property and rights to whom, and when. Is either party actually using the water or just somehow stopping the other party from using it. Who own how much? If there is not enough for all parties, who gets enough and who does not?

Water flows around and it really doesn't follow property, or even political boundaries. Even underground, a significant amount pumped out of the ground can lower the water level for miles around, and I can see why the little guy ranchers down on the Mojave might be concerned if a big outfit came along and wanted a water lease from the government to pump out mass quantities and sell it.

Dave in Eugene