Beneficial use is the basis, the measure and the limit of the right to the use of waters described in this title.
S.D. Codified Laws § 46-1-8
Beneficial use--Measure and limit of right to use of waters
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Matter of SD Water Mgmt. Bd. (1984)
Most recently applied in McCook Lake Recreation Area v. Dakota Bay, LLC (September 2025)
Source: SL 1955, ch 430, § 1; SL 1955, ch 431, § 1; SDC Supp 1960, §§ 61.0102 (6), 61.0401 (10).
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: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.