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<br /> <br />Water markets can mean an end to water shortages <br /> <br />Page 4 of 27 <br /> <br />flows to protect fish and recreational opportunities. <br /> <br />A Short History of State Water Law <br /> <br />"Because water is a necessity of life, policy makers <br />frequently assert that water is "different" from other <br />commodities and that the government must allocate <br />it. In fact, the opposite is true; because it is so <br />precious, we cannot afford the misallocation that <br />comes from political control. Nonetheless, <br />regulations have been the norm in the West since <br />formal government caught up with the frontier. <br /> <br />When miners and farmers first ventured onto the <br />Great Plains, they tried to use the common law <br />riparian doctrine carried over from England and <br />familiar to them in the eastern United States. <br />According to this doctrine, water use is based on <br />land ownership along streams and above <br />groundwater aquifers. Each riparian owner has a <br />right to reasonable use of water. One riparian owner <br />cannot unreasonably impair the rights of other <br />riparian owners to use water from the same source. <br />(The meaning of "reasonable use" varies from case <br />to case and state to state.) <br /> <br />The riparian system worked well where water was <br />abundant but was ill-suited to the arid West where <br />water was scarce and needed at mines and on fields <br />some distance from the nearest stream. <br /> <br />Interestingly, Indian tribes living in the <br />southwestern United States were among the early <br />civilizations to adapt to this scarcity through private <br />ownership. Although they collectively built dams <br />and diversion canals, water delivered to the <br />privately owned fields was privately owned <br />(Anderson 1995a). <br /> <br />European settlers in the West established rights to <br />water in the same way that land ownership was <br />established--on the basis of "first-in-time, first-in- <br />right." The first person to divert and use water from <br />a stream acquired a right to the quantity of water <br />used. Later claimants could establish rights to what <br />was left, but in times of shortage, the "senior" users <br />were entitled to take their full right from the stream <br />before "junior" users could begin diverting theirs. <br />Early water rights established under this prior <br /> <br />http://www. perc. org/publications/policyseries/priming_ full. php ?s=2 <br /> <br />9/12/2006 <br />