State engineer reviews Provo City South proposed water-rights determination; objections due June 18

Chase McDonald, assistant state engineer over adjudication, reviewed the proposed determination and hydrographic survey for the Provo City South subdivision and told attendees that objections to the proposed determination must be filed with the court by June 18.

The proposed determination, compiled after claim investigations in the Provo City South book, is intended to form part of the court's comprehensive decree of water rights for the drainage. "What a general adjudication does is it joins all water users within a drainage and the state engineer as parties to litigation to obtain a final comprehensive decree of all water rights within that drainage," Chase McDonald said. He said the proposed determination was published on March 20 and opened a 90-day objection period that ends June 18.

McDonald (with Michael Ferguson, assistant attorney general, and adjudication engineers Kate and Andrea present) summarized the adjudication timeline and components of the proposed determination. He said the adjudication process in Utah is detailed in Utah Code Title 73, Chapter 4 and typically proceeds in phases: an initiation phase (the transcript references an initiation phase in summer 2019), a claim-filing phase (completed in 2021 for this book), and a claim-investigation/proposed-determination phase that produced state engineer recommendations (SERs) for each water right.

Key parts of the proposed determination, McDonald said, include a title page listing the jurisdiction (the Third Judicial District Court) and the civil case number (not specified in the meeting materials), a notice to water users with instructions on how to object, an alphabetical index of rights by owner, and the priority schedule. The priority schedule lists each right's source, priority date, authorized flow or volume, the state-engineer water-right number, and the owner of record. McDonald noted that the county recorder's office is the official record of ownership and that owners should update title through a report of conveyance if needed.

The proposed-determination entries also show a water right's type (for example, decree, application, or diligence claim), point of diversion (which may be a well or surface diversion), the PLSS (section, township, range) description of place of use, group numbers for rights with shared use, the nature of use (irrigation, stock, domestic, municipal, etc.), and the authorized period of use (for irrigation in this book, April 1 to Oct. 31; domestic use is year-round). McDonald said the document includes "other comments" fields that identify distribution schedules or ownership remarks where several owners share a right.

McDonald explained categories used in the proposed determination: forfeited rights (investigation found no use for seven years or more, a period set by state statute), invalid claims (claims lacking a legal basis under state law, such as insufficient evidence for pre-statutory use), and allowed rights. He emphasized that a map designation of "abandoned" refers to abandonment of the water right, not necessarily to a physically abandoned well.

The hydrographic survey map, McDonald said, is a visual record of points of diversion and irrigated acreage discovered during investigations. The maps are not filed with the court but are intended as a public, useful visual aid; each printed map page is sized for 2-by-3 feet and includes a north arrow, scale, PLSS grid, and a legend that color-codes rights that are allowed, disallowed, or abandoned. McDonald said the maps will be digitized and made available online alongside the proposed determination.

How to act: McDonald directed water users to the public meeting materials page for links to the proposed determination and hydrographic maps and reiterated that objections must be submitted to the court within the 90-day window that closes June 18. He said staff from the State Engineer's Office public inquiry team are available to help, and that after the recorded presentation staff would remain to answer specific questions. "If you have questions about something I say during the presentation, please ask me as I'm going through it," McDonald said.

During a brief question-and-answer period, an attendee asked whether nothing had changed for an individual with an approved personal well. The attendee said, "So nothing has happened," and McDonald and staff offered to follow up individually after the recorded session to review that person's paperwork and explain any implications.

Next steps explained at the meeting: objections will be resolved after the 90-day window closes, the State Engineer's Office will work to resolve those objections, and the office then will seek an interlocutory decree from the court to advance the adjudication toward a final decree. The presentation materials and contact information for the public inquiry team are posted on the State Engineer's Office public meeting page.