(a) The commissioner may declare an appropriation to be wholly or partially abandoned and revoke or amend the certificate of appropriation as to the unused quantity of water if an appropriator, with intention to abandon, does not make beneficial use of all or a part of the appropriated water.

Terms Used In Alaska Statutes 46.15.140

  • Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
  • appropriation: means the diversion, impounding, or withdrawal of a quantity of water from a source of water for a beneficial use or the reservation of water under Alaska Stat. See Alaska Statutes 46.15.260
  • beneficial use: means a use of water for the benefit of the appropriator, other persons or the public, that is reasonable and consistent with the public interest, including, but not limited to, domestic, agricultural, irrigation, industrial, manufacturing, fish and shellfish processing, navigation and transportation, mining, power, public, sanitary, fish and wildlife, recreational uses, and maintenance of water quality. See Alaska Statutes 46.15.260
  • commissioner: means the commissioner of natural resources. See Alaska Statutes 46.15.260
  • person: includes an individual, partnership, association, public or private corporation, state agency, political subdivision of the state, and the United States. See Alaska Statutes 46.15.260
  • property: includes real and personal property. See Alaska Statutes 01.10.060
  • state: means the State of Alaska unless applied to the different parts of the United States and in the latter case it includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Alaska Statutes 01.10.060
  • water: means all water of the state, surface and subsurface, occurring in a natural state, except mineral and medicinal water. See Alaska Statutes 46.15.260
(b) The commissioner may declare that an appropriator has wholly or partially forfeited an appropriation, and shall revoke the certificate of appropriation in whole or in part if the appropriator voluntarily fails or neglects, without sufficient cause, to make use of all or a part of the appropriated water for a period of five successive years. A person who has a permit to develop a use of water including but not limited to residential, agricultural, industrial, or mining use, but has not developed that property to the point of water use before permit expiration, may file a request for permit extension with the commissioner.
(c) Failure to use beneficially for five successive years all or part of the water granted in a certificate of appropriation raises a rebuttable presumption that the appropriator has abandoned or forfeited the right to use the unused quantity of water and shifts to the appropriator the burden to prove otherwise to the satisfaction of the commissioner.
(d) If the commissioner revokes a certificate in whole or in part, the portion of the certificate covered by the revocation reverts to the state and the water becomes unappropriated water.
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