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Water Rights are not an invention of the Western US. Scarcity of water is as old as society itself, and societies have developed countless different ways of all

Water Rights are not an invention of the Western US. Scarcity of water is as old as society itself, and societies have developed countless different ways of allocating and enforcing that right. The ancient Romans had regulations on who could tap the aqueducts and what diameter of pipes they could use. The water court in Valencia still convenes every Thursday at midday to litigate water disputes, as it has for 1000 years.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
I think you've missed the point being made. Places with adequate levels of rainfall to grow crops without irrigation (even if irrigation may improve yield) generally do not have any concept of water rights. Water is considered to be a common good, like sun, wind, though more administered by conventional government means (whatever they might be in a particular part of the world). This is true of places with less water also, though the level of regulation and control was generally higher because of the increased value of water. This was true in Nuevo Mexico too, which inherited the acequia system from the Spanish (who had in turn received/been pushed into it by the Moors). The Valencia water court is one of the oldest still existing acequia systems in the world, and similar institutions used to exist across Spanish-controlled areas of north America. But the arrival of the US ditched any notion of communal control over who would receive water and when and how much. NM in particular adopted a "first in time, first in right" approach, in which water rights were established simply by pre-existing water use. Such water rights cannot be modified to accomodate for droughts or other higher priority needs as they would be in an acequia system, or east of the Mississippi, where some governmental-ish agency would decide on regulations and allocation. Instead, water rights in the US west are treated as essentially god-given, based on acknowledged ownership of land. The fact that your use of water may be in opposition to the broader aims of society has no impact on your water rights. This is likely to change over the next century (IMO), because it's just not viable in an era of reduced water availability. But for now, the system looks absolutely nothing like Roman regulation or the Valencia court syste (0). (0) There is a dispute resoluton mechanism to address "excess water taking" in the western US, but it is never based on need or priority, merely established water rights.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

I think you've missed the point being made. Places with adequate levels of rainfall to grow crops without irrigation (even if irrigation may improve yield) generally do not have any concept of water rights. Water is considered to be a common good, like sun, wind, though more administered by conventional government means (whatever they might be in a particular part of the world). This is true of places with less water also, though the level of regulation and control was generally higher because of the increased value of water. This was true in Nuevo Mexico too, which inherited the acequia system from the Spanish (who had in turn received/been pushed into it by the Moors). The Valencia water court is one of the oldest still existing acequia systems in the world, and similar institutions used to exist across Spanish-controlled areas of north America. But the arrival of the US ditched any notion of communal control over who would receive water and when and how much. NM in particular adopted a "first in time, first in right" approach, in which water rights were established simply by pre-existing water use. Such water rights cannot be modified to accomodate for droughts or other higher priority needs as they would be in an acequia system, or east of the Mississippi, where some governmental-ish agency would decide on regulations and allocation. Instead, water rights in the US west are treated as essentially god-given, based on acknowledged ownership of land. The fact that your use of water may be in opposition to the broader aims of society has no impact on your water rights. This is likely to change over the next century (IMO), because it's just not viable in an era of reduced water availability. But for now, the system looks absolutely nothing like Roman regulation or the Valencia court syste (0). (0) There is a dispute resoluton mechanism to address "excess water taking" in the western US, but it is never based on need or priority, merely established water rights.