AI-generated summary. We recommend consulting the bill text for important decisions.

Aimed at landowners with historic livestock operations, this bill updates Utah's water rights claim process by creating a legal presumption — meaning it's assumed to be true unless proven otherwise — that a landowner has the right to use a rain-fed pond on original homestead land (640 acres or less granted by the federal government) for watering livestock, as long as the pond existed before 1903, the total water use is less than 20 acre-feet per year, and the claimant files a complete claim with the state engineer. Someone who holds a separate water right and believes the pond is harming that right can challenge the presumption by presenting a preponderance of evidence — meaning more evidence than not — and the claimant and challenger can also reach a written agreement to resolve the dispute.