Court tells holders of water rights: Use it or lose it

Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003 | 9:30 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld a law that those who have water rights lose them if they do not put them to beneficial use within five years.

The court, in a decision issued Friday, said: "The Legislature has recognized that water is a limited resource in Nevada and it belongs to the public; therefore, one who does not put it to a beneficial use should not be allowed to hold it hostage."

The court rejected the appeal of Preferred Equities Corp., which held rights for 192.35 acre-feet a year in Nye County to be used for irrigation.

The state engineer's office in December 1996 ordered the rights forfeited because Preferred Equities did not put the water to beneficial use for more than five years.

But in 1998 the company filed an application to change the diversion point and to change the use to serve a development and golf course.

The state engineer's office determined the water rights had already been forfeited and Preferred Equities had never appealed that decision. It determined that the company had no water rights on which the use could be changed.

The Supreme Court said the firm's water rights "reverted to the public once the state engineer determined them forfeited in 1996 and the forfeiture became final upon PEC's failure to appeal that ruling within 30 days."