SB 2090 - North Dakota Water Permit Appropriation

• Creates new sections governing conditional water permit application denial and deferral, allowing the state engineer to deny applications that fail to meet criteria or defer applications lacking sufficient data for sound decision-making.

• Establishes property interest requirements for permitholders, requiring legal interest in each point of diversion and irrigated tract of land identified on permits.

• Adds new provisions allowing permitholders to add points of diversion, transfer approved irrigated acreage, and change purpose of use without affecting priority dates, subject to state engineer approval.

• Changes forfeiture language to "cancellation" throughout water right provisions and modifies the process for canceling unused water rights after three successive years of non-use.

• Repeals sections 61-04-07, 61-04-15.1, 61-04-17, and 61-04-22 relating to appeals of permit rejections, change in point of diversion, surplus water delivery, and prescriptive water rights.