TITLE 42

IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE — WATER RIGHTS AND RECLAMATION

CHAPTER 38

ALTERATION OF CHANNELS OF STREAMS

42-3802.  Definitions. Whenever used in this act, the term:

(a)  "Person" means any individual, partnership, company, corporation, municipality, county, state or federal agency, or other entity proposing to alter a stream channel.

(b)  "Alter" means to obstruct, diminish, destroy, alter, modify, relocate, or change the natural existing shape or direction of water flow of any stream channel within or below the mean high watermark thereof.

(c)  "Board" means the Idaho water resource board.

(d)  "Stream channel" means a natural watercourse of perceptible extent, with definite bed and banks, which confines and conducts continuously flowing water. Ditches, canals, laterals and drains that are constructed and used for irrigation or drainage purposes are not stream channels.

(e)  "Department" means the Idaho department of water resources.

(f)  "Director" means the director of the Idaho department of water resources.

(g)  "Plans" means maps, sketches, engineering drawings, word descriptions and specifications sufficient to describe the extent, nature and location of the proposed stream channel alteration and the proposed method of accomplishing same.

(h)  "Mean high watermark" means a water level corresponding to the natural or ordinary high watermark and is the line which the water impresses on the soil by covering it for sufficient periods of time to deprive the soil of its terrestrial vegetation and destroy its value for commonly accepted agricultural purposes.

History:

[42-3802, added 1971, ch. 337, sec. 2, p. 1304; am. 1974, ch. 20, sec. 33, p. 533; am. 1994, ch. 292, sec. 1, p. 912; am. 2004, ch. 191, sec. 2, p. 601.]