Division of Water Rights summarizes recent bills on water rights, brine mining, metering and river commissioners

Cash Stallings, regional engineer for the Utah Division of Water Rights, gave the Southeastern Utah Watershed Council a legislative briefing on April 14 that summarized about 10 bills and one budget appropriation the division is tracking.

Stallings said the session produced multiple clarifying amendments and new statutory frameworks that have direct application to the region. He described several items as follows:

- State water policy amendments: clarified the role of watershed activities and emphasized groundwater quality and sensible wastewater reuse.

- Water-right application amendments: tightened deadlines and clarified when water rights lapse, how they may be reinstated and the state engineer's authority, including potential reduction of priority dates when reinstated.

- Livestock watering and nonuse filings: removed an older livestock-watering certificate category, created a pathway for permittees to file nonuse applications to protect water portions during temporary nonuse, and provided statutory clarity for certain federal reserve-style claims (sometimes tied to an executive order the presenter identified from 1927) so the state engineer knows the geographic and volumetric limits of those claims before they are filed.

- Water transfer amendments (House Bill 89): eliminated the ability to transfer shares of irrigation companies by a simple affidavit; transfer documentation must exceed an affidavit to be recognized.

- Water-rights restricted account (House Bill 174): created or clarified funding for legal counsel so the state engineer can access legal advice beyond adjudication-only counsel.

- Agricultural Water Optimization amendments: increased grant funding levels to cover up to 75% of cost for specific project types (subsurface drip irrigation, automated surge irrigation, and measurement/telemetry) instead of earlier lower cost shares.

- Watershed and river-commission changes (House Bill 311): resolved human-resources issues around payment and supervision of river commissioners so distribution boards can continue to manage commissioner compensation; the law also removed a statute that had prevented the state's water agent from participating in multistate river negotiations.

- Brine-mining framework: established a new regulatory framework and clarified roles for the Division of Oil, Gas and Mining and the Division of Water Rights for applications to extract brine (including lithium), addressing royalties, water withdrawal and permitting procedures.

- Electronic signatures: removed the remaining statutory requirement for a wet signature on one division form so water-rights forms can now be signed electronically.

Stallings also described a budget decision to add three full-time positions to the WaterRight Network team to build out mapping and data services for the Great Salt Lake Basin; the network aims to provide an interactive public interface showing diversions, conveyance systems, places of use and recent diversion records.

On metering and tiered rates, Stallings reviewed a contentious bill (House Bill 274) that would have expanded secondary-metering requirements and required tiered rates for secondary water in certain counties. The bill did not pass this session, but Stallings described the debate: meters and tiered rates can reduce use, but for irrigation systems with large agricultural users a blanket tiered rate could be economically disruptive and raise equity concerns for mixed-use systems.

On groundwater management and curtailment, Stallings reiterated that under current statute the state engineer's principal tool for administering shortages is priority-based curtailment ("first in time, first in right"). He noted statute also allows a groundwater management plan when a third of water rights by volume petition for one and that groundwater-management plans generally create management committees and lead times for changes.

Stallings cautioned that some projects and applications remain in court or under de novo review, so he could not comment on specific pending applications. "I can't really speak much to that application specifically because it's currently in de novo review," he said.

Why it matters: the bills clarify procedures for applicants, change funding priorities for conservation projects, create regulation for brine mining, and assign new duties for data mapping and legal counsel — all items that affect local water providers, irrigation companies and county planning.

Next steps: Stallings said his office will continue outreach as data services expand and to support water-rights processing; local providers should expect requests for data and mapping collaboration from the WaterRight Network team.