Courts oversee restoration when agricultural water rights change

The water court must include field-specific restoration standards and a scientific way to measure success in its decree. These rules apply in Water Division 2 when an agricultural irrigation water right is changed to another use, if the earlier decree for that right did not require revegetation or dryland farming. The water-right owner must identify proposed criteria and a scientific, objective way to measure success. The criteria must address weed control, including noxious weeds. If a qualifying local permit or agreement already sets criteria and a measurement method, the court must use them. Otherwise, it must use criteria and a method adopted by the local land-use authority, if available. These requirements apply to covered changes decreed on or after January 1, 2027.

The water court must appoint a neutral expert, paid by the water-right owner, to review fields and report on restoration progress. Reviews cover the formerly irrigated land field by field. The owner must give field owners and case parties at least 20 days’ notice before each review, and they may take part. The court may limit water available for the new use after sustained failure over multiple reporting periods. It may order extra, time-limited oversight if it finds a substantial risk that restoration will not continue. The expert reviews the land within 90 days before November 1 each year. The owner must send each report to listed recipients within 20 days of receiving it, and the court gives parties 60 days to comment or respond.

The court must keep restoration requirements in place until they are satisfied and order one of the listed safeguards. These safeguards apply to owners carrying out a covered, court-approved change of use. The court may require financial security sufficient to cover the reasonably expected restoration cost, or limit when or how much water can be used for the new use while allowing existing decreed uses to continue. If a qualifying local permit or agreement already requires sufficient financial security or sets water-use timing or limits, the court must adopt those requirements instead of imposing the other listed safeguards. The court must deem the requirements satisfied if it finds that the land is irrigated from another source, re-irrigated under the same right as court-authorized, or converted to another use with adequate weed and erosion control.