Oh well if the Spaniards did it that settles it. What a croc..this isn’t about water rights ...it’s about government tyranny! The government takes the rights that sheep allow. If I take a walk in the mud and the water from the next storm is trapped in my footprints am I guilty of stealing the states water!!
This is surface water. It gets really complicated when you start talking about underground water.
In Eastern states as they were organized title to all the wildlife on the land was retained by the state governments and made available to the people. That's why in the newer Eastern states you can usually hunt on anyone's property, unless prohibited by another law (which will require no hunting posting), but in the older Eastern states you can't hunt anywhere unless you have explicit permission.
BTW, any property title lawyer will run the rights of ownership all the way back to the King of Spain if you want ~ and they don't go further than that.
Constitutionally here in Virginia all of us own the wild deer, squirrels and rabbits ~ but we can only go on someone's land to hunt with the owner's permission. In Indiana I not only owned all those animals, even the property owner couldn't take them all ~ or clear them out. BTW, it's always a courtesy to let a landowner know you are hunting on his land.