[ontap]

The guy in this article is taking someone else's prior appropriation water right and it is the state's job to prevent him. So, under the use it or lose it clause, if this guy successfully uses the water, that would prevent the actual owner(s) from using the water they would lose the water right.

This is bumbo jumbo horseshit....he dug a hole on his property a it rained in the hole. The government does not own everything it declares it owns. This is the end result of environmental Nazism!! This is happening in Oregon because of the sheep that live there and elect these idiot's!!

[Ben Ficklin]

Some of the water rights in the west go back centuries and were put in place by the Spaniards.

The underlying economic and political power of the Mormons in Utah flow from the fact that they prior appropriated large amounts water there.

First in time, first in right.