When the necessity for the use of water does not exist, the right to divert it ceases, and no person shall be permitted to divert or use the waters of this State except at such times as the water is required for a beneficial purpose.
NRS 533.045
Right to divert ceases when necessity for use does not exist
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Bacher v. Office of the State Engineer (2006)
Most recently applied in 141 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 19 - VIRGIN VALLEY WATER DIST. v. PARADISE CANYON, LLC (April 2025)
[5:140:1913; 1919 RL p. 3226; NCL § 7894]
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Nevada Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Nevada statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.