If any person entitled to the use of appropriated water fails to use beneficially any part of the water for the purpose for which it was appropriated, for a period of three years, the unused water shall revert to the public and shall be regarded as unappropriated public water.
S.D. Codified Laws § 46-5-37
Failure to use beneficially appropriated water--Forfeiture for nonuse--Reversion to public
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case In Re Cancellation of the Stabio Ditch Water Right on Spearfish Creek (1987)
Most recently applied in McCook Lake Recreation Area v. Dakota Bay, LLC (September 2025)
Source: SDC 1939, § 61.0139; SL 1955, ch 430, § 1; SDC Supp 1960, § 61.0125; SL 2011, ch 165, § 269.
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.