30 USC § 51 - Water users’ vested and accrued rights; enumeration of uses; protection of interest; rights-of-way for canals and ditches; liability for injury or damage to settlers’ possession

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Whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same; and the right-of-way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes herein specified is acknowledged and confirmed; but whenever any person, in the construction of any ditch or canal, injures or damages the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage.

Source

(R.S. § 2339.)

Repeals

Provision of this section, “and the right-of-way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes herein specified is acknowledged and confirmed; but whenever any person, in the construction of any ditch or canal, injures or damages the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage.” was repealed by Pub. L. 94–579, title VII, § 706(a),Oct. 21, 1976, 90 Stat. 2793, effective on and after Oct. 21, 1976, insofar as applicable to the issuance of rights-of-way over, upon, under, and through the public lands and lands in the National Forest System.

Codification

R.S. § 2339 derived from act July 26, 1866, ch. 262, § 9,14 Stat. 253.

Section is also set out as the first par. of section 661 of Title 43, Public Lands.

Savings Provision

Repeal by Pub. L. 94–579, title VII, § 706(a),Oct. 21, 1976, 90 Stat. 2793, insofar as applicable to the issuance of rights-of-way not to be construed as terminating any valid lease, permit, patent, etc., existing on Oct. 21, 1976, see note set out under section 1701 of Title 43, Public Lands.

Submerged Lands Act

Provisions of this section as not amended, modified or repealed by the Submerged Lands Act, see section 1303 of Title 43, Public Lands.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 7, 2011, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 13, 2011

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

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General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

30 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

This is a list of parts within the Code of Federal Regulations for which this US Code section provides rulemaking authority.

This list is taken from the Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules provided by GPO [Government Printing Office].

It is not guaranteed to be accurate or up-to-date, though we do refresh the database weekly. More limitations on accuracy are described at the GPO site.

36 CFR - Title 36—Parks, Forests, and Public Property

36 CFR 9 - MINERALS MANAGEMENT

43 CFR - Title 43—Public Lands: Interior

43 CFR 3710 - PUBLIC LAW 167; ACT OF JULY 23, 1955

43 CFR 3730 - PUBLIC LAW 359; MINING IN POWERSITE WITHDRAWALS: GENERAL

43 CFR 3809 -

43 CFR 3810 -

43 CFR 3820 -

43 CFR 3830 - LOCATING, RECORDING, AND MAINTAINING MINING CLAIMS OR SITES; GENERAL PROVISIONS

43 CFR 3831 - MINERAL LANDS AVAILABLE FOR LOCATING MINING CLAIMS OR SITES [Reserved]

43 CFR 3832 - LOCATING MINING CLAIMS OR SITES

43 CFR 3833 - RECORDING MINING CLAIMS AND SITES

43 CFR 3838 - SPECIAL PROCEDURES FOR LOCATING AND RECORDING MINING CLAIMS AND TUNNEL SITES ON STOCKRAISING HOMESTEAD ACT (SRHA) LANDS

43 CFR 3850

30 USC § 51 - Water users’ vested and accrued rights; enumeration of uses; protection of interest; rights-of-way for canals and ditches; liability for injury or damage to settlers’ possession

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