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Utah House debates new court route to resolve disputed water-right forfeitures
Summary
Lawmakers debated HB59, which would create a court-based process to resolve contested forfeiture of decreed water rights after nonuse, clarify notification and extension procedures, and limit the time window for challenges; members pushed for a 10-year safe-harbor and asked for additional drafting on notifications and state engineer authority.
The Utah House debated a bill to create a judicial procedure for disputes over forfeited decreed water rights, aiming to clear long-standing uncertainty where water rights have been treated as collateral and sometimes challenged after long periods of nonuse.
A sponsor of House Bill 59 described the proposal as a way to "take the cloud off many of the decreed water rights in the state of Utah," saying the measure would not change the five-year nonuse standard but would provide a process to bring forfeiture claims to court. The sponsor emphasized that any challenge…
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