Anyone Familiar with Riparian Rights?

ARFlyer

ARFlyer

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I have been doing some research on riparian rights as they relate to private property owners.

We have noticed over the past few years that our creek has gone from flowing almost year around to only flowing during heavy rains. About two years ago a guy brought some land behind us and built a house and dammed a feeder to our section of the creek.

From what I have read this is illegal as it affects the properties downstream from the dam. However, does anyone have any experience in dealing with water rights?

The creek is on our land for about 80% of its length. The rest is along the local county road and the section the new owner dammed.

Please don't devolve this into a bickering fest.
 
We own a lot of land and I've been told here in TX you cannot dam up a waterway and impede flow without going through a pretty grueling permit process.

In old times, these things got people shot because water was your and your livestocks life blood.

Go to the county water board or commissioner or whoever oversee's this in your county and raise hell. EDit in: Check if the neighbor has the proper permits before raising hell ...
 
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txflyer said:
Go to the county water board or commissioner or whoever oversee's this in your county and raise hell. EDit in: Check if the neighbor has the proper permits before raising hell ...
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Part of that permitting process would have involved notices and hearings. More likely than not, there is no permit for his fish pond.
 
weilke said:
Part of that permitting process would have involved notices and hearings. More likely than not, there is no permit for his fish pond.
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It's a good size pond of about 5 acres. I found a summary of the local regulations but its vague and I cant find the actual legal document.
 
ARFlyer said:
I have been doing some research on riparian rights as they relate to private property owners.

We have noticed over the past few years that our creek has gone from flowing almost year around to only flowing during heavy rains. About two years ago a guy brought some land behind us and built a house and dammed a feeder to our section of the creek.

From what I have read this is illegal as it affects the properties downstream from the dam. However, does anyone have any experience in dealing with water rights?

The creek is on our land for about 80% of its length. The rest is along the local county road and the section the new owner dammed.

Please don't devolve this into a bickering fest.
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Dynamite is cheap and easy...
 
weilke said:
Part of that permitting process would have involved notices and hearings. More likely than not, there is no permit for his fish pond.
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That depends how many acres of property you have. In Arkansas it used to be if you had >25 acres, you didn't need a permit for anything. I never pulled permit one for anything on our land in Texas.
 
Henning said:
That depends how many acres of property you have. In Arkansas it used to be if you had >25 acres, you didn't need a permit for anything. I never pulled permit one for anything on our land in Texas.
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Not having to pull a permit doesn't mean that another holder of riparian rights can't get an injunction against you if your use interferes with his use of the creek.
 
ARFlyer said:
I have been doing some research on riparian rights as they relate to private property owners.

We have noticed over the past few years that our creek has gone from flowing almost year around to only flowing during heavy rains. About two years ago a guy brought some land behind us and built a house and dammed a feeder to our section of the creek.

From what I have read this is illegal as it affects the properties downstream from the dam. However, does anyone have any experience in dealing with water rights?

The creek is on our land for about 80% of its length. The rest is along the local county road and the section the new owner dammed.

Please don't devolve this into a bickering fest.
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Not too familiar, but go to the county or regional water board; they will have the channels mapped, and will tell you if any alteration requires permits. It could be the case that the guy upstream wasn't doing anything that required a permit, but he accidently (or not) altered the water flow and screwed up everything- people downstream wouldn't necessarily know.
 
Holding back 5 acre feet of water around here without a permit, probably would run a significant chance of you being shot, still today. LOL.

We just filed for the permanent water rights for the three aquifers under our land and the neighborhood did it as a whole, meaning the aggregate rights are based on the entire "well field" of properties that are close enough together to be considered part of the same drilling field.

Executive summary: If the Denver Aquifer ever dries up or has problems, the neighborhood will have the right to drill down to the next much larger aquifer and build a neighborhood water system, if ever required.

If that has problems, go to the next one but it's really expensive to get down there and that aquifer is heavy with sulfur. A water treatment facility would be required.

Total legal costs? $150 per house.

As far as surface water goes, I can't even move my slightly raised driveway without a county permit approved and showing that I will place culverts under it at the low point, so as to not impede surface water flow in any way.
 
Interesting discussion. As a general FYI, water rights can be significantly different from state to state. I've lived in 4 states. In 3 it was a minor subset of property rights. In the fourth it was a highly technicall specialty that even property law practitioners stayed away from.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Interesting discussion. As a general FYI, water rights can be significantly different from state to state. I've lived in 4 states. In 3 it was a minor subset of property rights. In the fourth it was a highly technicall specialty that even property law practitioners stayed away from.
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Heh. I know which state the fourth was. ;)

(The guy doing our stuff is a paralegal at a law firm that does absolutely nothing but water rights. Once it's all prepared, a staff attorney at the firm will review the paperwork. And half of our neighborhood sits on the side of a water district line that means those properties have to go to Water Court (yup, you remember we have such a thing) to be adjudicated, and the eastern half is outside the Water Court jurisdiction and is handled by the State engineer. The law firm is involved for their expertise to make a cross-boundary "well field" even possible. Without a million i's dotted and t's crossed, a water court adjudication and a pile of State engineer filings, aren't considered related in any way at all, legally. The magic the firm will accomplish via mountains of paperwork, is the joining of the two well fields into one, once both are established, while maintaining each participating property owner's individual water rights as a separate but equal member of the whole. Fascinating stuff, but I imagine insanely dull after you've done thousands of them.)
 
weilke said:
Not having to pull a permit doesn't mean that another holder of riparian rights can't get an injunction against you if your use interferes with his use of the creek.
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midlifeflyer said:
Interesting discussion. As a general FYI, water rights can be significantly different from state to state. I've lived in 4 states. In 3 it was a minor subset of property rights. In the fourth it was a highly technicall specialty that even property law practitioners stayed away from.
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Two excellent comments above. A good idea would to be to go to your municipal or state government. They may take on the offending property owner for you. That said it is probably worth at least a consultation with a property or water rights attorney to make sure that YOUR interests are protected.
 
Water rights aren't automatic. You have to file to get them. It may not be as easy as you imagine.

A guy's damming a creek shouldn't last very long before his pond fills and outflow returns to normal. Legal or not? That's a local issue.
 
weilke said:
Not having to pull a permit doesn't mean that another holder of riparian rights can't get an injunction against you if your use interferes with his use of the creek.
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I understand that, the point was just about the guy not getting a permit to do it when the permit process doesn't apply.
 
Henning said:
I understand that, the point was just about the guy not getting a permit to do it when the permit process doesn't apply.
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EPA can still assess you penalties into six figures a day for unauthorized modification of a waterway.
 
JeffDG said:
EPA can still assess you penalties into six figures a day for unauthorized modification of a waterway.
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Actually it's the Corps of Engineers, but yeah. I'm only familiar with California law but here a permit must be obtained to create a diversion, and senior water rights holders prevail over junior water rights holders. Today, it would be nearly impossible to obtain a new diversion permit in California, and allocation transfers are a difficult process at best.
 
JeffDG said:
EPA can still assess you penalties into six figures a day for unauthorized modification of a waterway.
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This is where the real power lies, state and feds can make your life miserable in these situations. I'd check the local county offices to see what permits are required, what were issued and what rights you have. Then I would speak with the neighbor, but only after I had a clear understanding of my position. I had an issue with a builder that had buried a trash pile on my lot, I called the county, they recommended I call the state. The nice lady at the state EPD wanted to meet me at my home and examine the area. I just called the builder and he laughed about it and said, "Every lot has some debris buried on it" I told him the EPD wanted to come look at it and he had a front end loader and a dump truck there the next morning. :D Problem solved. ;)
 
I find it amusing how guys alternately complain about the government I interfering in their lives and then brag about tugging on the government's apron strings when it suits them.
 
Is this a new pond? A new dam? When I decided to put in a pond we were able to avoid permits and inspections because there was an old dam there. The power that be said it was a renovation and no permits were needed. It was washed out decades ago due to the amount of runoff in the 98 acres watershed. We put in a new dam with better water release.

Best advice is to let it go or get an attorney.
 
Stewartb said:
I find it amusing how guys alternately complain about the government I interfering in their lives and then brag about tugging on the government's apron strings when it suits them.
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I think that I'd be pretty upset if a neighbor moved in and dammed up the creek that mostly runs through my property.

With that being said, I've always been somewhat hesitant to call on the government for help, and that is especially true with environmental agencies. As others have noted, penalties can escalate quickly, regulations often require a team of lawyers to decipher, and the last thing I need is a "helpful" bureaucrat who discovers that I, too, am in violation of some obscure regulation that I don't even know about. We're way beyond the point at which common sense prevails in government, especially with regard to environmental law.

Given what I know about the OP's situation, I'd probably do some research, and then attempt a friendly chat with the neighbor before calling on the government for help.


JKG
 
JGoodish said:
I think that I'd be pretty upset if a neighbor moved in and dammed up the creek that mostly runs through my property.

With that being said, I've always been somewhat hesitant to call on the government for help, and that is especially true with environmental agencies. As others have noted, penalties can escalate quickly, regulations often require a team of lawyers to decipher, and the last thing I need is a "helpful" bureaucrat who discovers that I, too, am in violation of some obscure regulation that I don't even know about. We're way beyond the point at which common sense prevails in government, especially with regard to environmental law.

Given what I know about the OP's situation, I'd probably do some research, and then attempt a friendly chat with the neighbor before calling on the government for help.


JKG
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That wasn't his point. His point was that all these people complain about government intrusion and how they should be able to do whatever they want, yet when someone else does whatever they want, they go run to the government for relief. Me Me Me, we have a ****ed society.
 
Water rights vary tremendously from state to state. You'll need to investigate what the laws say..some places give more rights to people upstream, some to places downstream, some in the order along the waterway that the land was originally surveyed / settled / bought.
 
Henning said:
That wasn't his point. His point was that all these people complain about government intrusion and how they should be able to do whatever they want, yet when someone else does whatever they want, they go run to the government for relief. Me Me Me, we have a ****ed society.
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The alternative is to handle it yourself, this isn't a Me Me Me issue, it's someone interfering with a person's right to enjoy or use his property. :D
 
Henning said:
That wasn't his point. His point was that all these people complain about government intrusion and how they should be able to do whatever they want, yet when someone else does whatever they want, they go run to the government for relief. Me Me Me, we have a ****ed society.
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I get his point. My point is that "tugging on the government's apron strings" isn't necessarily the wisest course of action in this case, regardless of your philosophy on the role of government.


JKG
 
N747JB said:
The alternative is to handle it yourself, this isn't a Me Me Me issue, it's someone interfering with a person's right to enjoy or use his property. :D
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As I said earlier, dynamite is cheap.;) It is a Me Me Me issue, it just happens that the OP s on the receiving end of the behavior's result.
 
Henning said:
As I said earlier, dynamite is cheap.;) It is a Me Me Me issue, it just happens that the OP s on the receiving end of the behavior's result.
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Personal disputes have existed since the beginning of time. The right way to resolve them has never changed. Direct negotiation is still best. If that fails, well, I won't personally endorse any specific alternative methods that an individual may employ to resolve the dispute on his own.


JKG
 
Sounds like beavers could be involved! you must get a lawyer familiar with suing beavers. They are wiley.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Sounds like beavers could be involved! you must get a lawyer familiar with suing beavers. They are wiley.
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If you want to dam a creek on your property, building a beaver dam and lodge would be the best way to go about it. :lol:
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Sounds like beavers could be involved! you must get a lawyer familiar with suing beavers. They are wiley.
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I always settled my beaver disputes with a high caliber rifle, but it is hard to get a clean shot on one. :D
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Aahhhh, another John Wayne type..." Tough guy!" .
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No, we had beavers on our property and I shot them, nothing tough guy about a 16 year old kid with a 30.06, that was just life on the farm. ;)
 
Stewartb said:
I find it amusing how guys alternately complain about the government I interfering in their lives and then brag about tugging on the government's apron strings when it suits them.
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That sounds like most of the non-eskimo people I met living in the bush.

And yes, I find it amusing as well. :lol::lol:
 
Zeldman said:
That sounds like most of the non-eskimo people I met living in the bush.

And yes, I find it amusing as well. :lol::lol:
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I too found it amusing how many "ruggedly independent Alaskan" folks lived off welfare.:rofl:
 
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