How and why were laws controlling ownership of water changed in the U.S. Intermontane region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The text does not specify the time of this transition, so it may be easy for the student to become confused by this question. The student should talk about water appropriation in their answer. The Intermontane region does not have the abundance of streams, rivers, and lakes that the East enjoys. So while some farmers were lucky to own land adjacent to streams, some were not. American water laws are based on English water laws, which say that the person owning land adjacent to a watercourse had rights to water from that source. Settlers to the Intermontane West realized that this practice, which was followed in the eastern United States, would not work in the Intermontane West. So the laws were modified during the late 19th and early 20th centuries so that the first person to put the water to beneficial use, regardless of location, would have rights. A settler could build a ditch or canal from a distant river or lake to irrigate their fields and claim appropriative water rights. This appropriation principle enabled settlers to build canals, irrigation ditches, and channels between permanent streams such as the Colorado, Snake, and Green Rivers to their own lands.