## Facts

- Multiple landowners and a water company diverted groundwater from a single artesian basin on an alluvial fan in Juab County, Utah.
- Fowkes and Andrews irrigated using naturally flowing artesian wells and a spring drawing from the basin.
- Andrews also installed a pump well and later contracted with Current Creek Irrigation Co. to drill additional pumped wells on Andrews’s land to supply water to Mona Reservoir.
- Pumping lowered artesian pressure in the basin, diminishing flow from the preexisting flowing wells and springs used by Fowkes and Andrews.
- Three actions were consolidated: Current Creek sought to confirm its right to pump and divert; Andrews and Fowkes sought adjudication of senior rights and relief from pumping interference.
- The trial court adjudicated priorities as Fowkes first, Andrews second, and Current Creek junior; found unappropriated water remained; and enjoined pumping unless juniors replaced the seniors’ diminished flows.

## Issues

1. Whether senior appropriators from an artesian basin have a vested right to continued delivery by natural artesian pressure, rather than only to a quantity for beneficial use.
2. Whether junior appropriators may pump from the same basin when pumping reduces artesian pressure and diminishes natural flows to senior wells and springs.
3. Whether juniors must restore artesian pressure or replace diminished flows as a condition of continued pumping.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court affirmed the adjudication of rights in part but modified the injunctive relief.
- The court held that seniors are protected in their priority to a quantity of water for beneficial use, not in the continuation of artesian pressure as a delivery mechanism.
- Junior pumping is permissible even if it reduces natural artesian flow, so long as seniors can still obtain their appropriated quantities by reasonable and practicable means (including pumping) and the basin is not over-appropriated.
- The trial court’s requirement that juniors replace all diminished natural flow as a condition of pumping was too rigid and was narrowed to focus on preventing unreasonable impairment of seniors’ ability to obtain their quantities.

## Legal Principles

- Under prior appropriation applied to a common groundwater basin, the protected right is priority to beneficial use of an appropriated quantity, not a guarantee of a static physical condition of the source.
- A senior appropriator is not entitled to insist that water continue to be delivered by artesian pressure if the senior can still take the adjudicated quantity by reasonable means.
- Junior appropriators may develop and pump groundwater from the common basin up to the point where senior rights would be unreasonably impaired; if impairment becomes unreasonable or deprives seniors of their quantities, juniors may be limited.
- Remedies in artesian-basin disputes should be calibrated to ensure delivery of seniors’ quantities, rather than to preserve historical pressure conditions as an absolute entitlement.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that senior users of an artesian basin hold priority to the quantity of water put to beneficial use, but not an absolute right to continued artesian pressure; junior pumping may proceed subject to limits necessary to prevent unreasonable impairment of seniors’ ability to obtain their adjudicated quantities.


Current Creek Irrigation Co. v. Andrews, 344 P.2d 528 (Utah 1959)