## Facts

- An intermittent natural watercourse, Abo Wash, crossed Lorenzo Miranda’s property and carried runoff after rains toward the Rio Grande.
- Before 1907, prior landowners grazed livestock on, and cut hay from, naturally growing grass in and near the wash that benefited from intermittent flows.
- After World War I, a naturally formed arroyo diverted flows away from the wash, reducing its value for pasture.
- In 1969, Miranda filed a declaration claiming a pre-1907 water right based on the historic grazing and haying, and filed applications to change the point of diversion by drilling irrigation wells.
- Witnesses testified to pre-1907 grazing and haying but could not identify any ditches, headgates, or other man-made diversion works; Miranda offered no evidence of artificial diversion structures.
- The State Engineer sought a declaration that Miranda had no cognizable right to use waters of the Rio Grande Underground Water Basin or hydrologically related waters.

## Issues

1. Whether New Mexico prior-appropriation law requires physical works of man resulting in a visible diversion to establish a water right.
2. Whether grazing and harvesting naturally occurring vegetation irrigated by intermittent flows, without artificial diversion, can constitute a perfected pre-1907 water right.

## Decision

- The New Mexico Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the State Engineer.
- The court held that a man-made, visible diversion is required to establish an appropriative water right under the doctrine applied in New Mexico.
- Because Miranda showed only passive use of naturally watered grass and no diversion works, he failed to prove any valid pre-1907 water right.
- Without a valid underlying right, Miranda’s well applications could not be supported by the claimed historic use.

## Legal Principles

- A New Mexico appropriative water right requires application of water to beneficial use plus physical efforts of man producing a visible diversion from the source.
- Beneficial use alone does not perfect a right when the water is not captured or controlled through diversion works.
- Claims to vested pre-1907 rights must satisfy the substantive elements of appropriation existing at the time, including the diversion requirement.
- Visible diversion works serve evidentiary and administrative functions by making the fact and extent of claimed rights ascertainable and subject to orderly regulation.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a claimed pre-1907 water right based solely on grazing and haying naturally irrigated grass in an intermittent wash, holding that New Mexico appropriation requires a man-made, visible diversion; absent such proof, no valid water right exists.


State ex rel. Reynolds v. Miranda, 83 N.M. 445, 493 P.2d 409 (N.M. 1972)