The Associated Press Aug. 31 —

Not a day goes by when attorney Tim Buchanan isn't deluged with calls from his hundreds of clients. He hears accusations of theft and negligence. He responds with threats of lawsuits and fines.

Yet Buchanan isn't a criminal lawyer. His clients are farmers. His specialty is water, a commodity that grows more precious as drought grows more severe.

"There's a lot of land in the West, but not a lot of land that has water," said Buchanan, of Arvada, Colo. "It is crucial to the economy and lifeblood of Colorado and the other Western states."

This year his skills are in demand like never before, as dwindling streams leave water users fighting for every last drop under the Western states' complicated water laws.

There are senior water rights and junior rights. Water courts with water judges and even water referees.

It's all meant to help sort out who gets how much water or, in times of drought, who doesn't get any.

"Now, neighbors tend to fight more," said Gregory Lyman, a water judge in southwestern Colorado. "They're out there farming their land trying desperately to get the water they're entitled to. When they first get into court they're hopping mad."

The basic tenet of Western water law is simple: First-come, first-served, or "first in time, first in right." In other words, the first person to divert water from a stream and put it to good use is entitled to that water regardless of subsequent claims.

The first person to stake a claim is the "senior appropriator," with the most senior water rights. Those who come later are "junior appropriators."

Water rights can be transferred, sold, even rented. In the Denver area, according to Buchanan, water rights sell for $4,000 to $12,000 per acre foot, the amount of water it takes to cover one acre one foot deep.

It's a uniquely Western tenet.

"It all started with the miners in the Gold Rush period," explains David Getches, a water law professor at the University of Colorado. "The first one to get to the gold could develop the gold. They treated water the same way. The first one to stake a claim on water got the water."

In the East, water rights were determined by land ownership. People who owned land next to a stream or lake had a water right.

The Eastern system also considers water communal property and requires sharing. In times of drought, everybody cuts back.

Not so in the West; "first in time, first in right" takes precedence even during dry spells.

That's when things get complicated and contentious.

"You have this situation in drought where some people with water rights get no water at all," said Getches. "There are more water rights existing on a stream than there is water."

Such was the situation this year along the South Platte River in eastern Colorado.

When the river ran low this spring, senior appropriators such as the Fort Morgan Reservoir and Irrigation Co. put out a call for their water. Because the company's water rights date to 1882, that meant anyone with subsequent rights couldn't draw from the river until the irrigation outfit got its share.

Problems ensued when Fort Morgan Irrigation and other "ditch companies" accused junior appropriators of continuing to pump from the river without replacing what they took. Now there isn't enough water for senior users, including Fort Morgan Irrigation and the 160 farms it serves.

"We're burning up," company President Harold Griffith said of his customers' fields.

Griffith and six other irrigation ditch operators, represented by Buchanan, have threatened to sue the state to force the junior appropriators to shut down their pumps.

"The value of water is shown by the amount of effort people are willing to take to acquire it," said Ken Beegles, a state engineer charged with managing water use in southwestern Colorado. "We do have violence threatened sometimes."

Several states are reviewing the system. Idaho courts are sorting through 170,000 claims to water rights on the Snake River, while more than 200,000 claims to Montana's river basins are under inspection.

Some, like Getches, say the system must be overhauled to place greater priority on urban needs. He notes that up to 90 percent of the water diverted from streams in the West is for agricultural use.

"Any time you see a city that claims it's short of water, it's not because the stream is dry but because someone else has senior rights," he said. "And that somebody is almost always agriculture."

Others maintain that the system works, if the rules are followed.

"It's not a pleasant thing to do to fight your neighbor over a water right," said Griffith. "But agriculture is here to stay. We have to feed people. This land is worth $2,000 an acre. Without the water, it would be $200. It's something you have to fight for."

EDITOR'S NOTE Pauline Arrillaga is the AP's Southwest regional writer, based in Phoenix.

On the Net:

Water Law Basics: http://www.waterwatch.org/waterlaw.html

Water Rights Law: http://profs.lp.findlaw.com/water/index.html