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petitioner’s water right. At the beginning of 1997, it opposed
any transfer of petitioner’s water outside the Colorado River
Basin, including the proposed sale to Corpus Christi.
3. Events After the Valuation Date
A. The 1997 Legislative Session
During the 1997 Texas legislative session, legislators and
interest groups with opposing interests rewrote the laws
regulating water planning and usage in Texas. The result of this
collaboration was Senate Bill 1 (SB1). SB1 included an amendment
known as the Junior Water Rights Provision. Under the amendment,
the water rights involved in any interbasin transfer approved
under the new law would lose their priority date and be assigned
the date of the transfer as a new priority date. SB1 became
effective September 1, 1997. All interbasin transfers for which
applications were made before March 1, 1997, including
petitioner’s application for an interbasin transfer to Corpus
Christi, were exempted from the amendment.
A loss of priority date would be significant to petitioner
because of the nature of its water right. Petitioner’s water
right was a run-of-the-river right. A run-of-the-river right
entitles the holder to divert water only if the flow is available
on the day the holder needs to use it, and compels upstream
holders of water rights with junior priority dates to allow
available water to flow past them, without diverting or storing
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