Editing Time immemorial (section)

==== Water rights ====
"Time Immemorial" is sometimes used to describe the priority date of [[Water law in the United States|water rights]] holders.<ref name=":1" /> In the western United States, water rights are administered under the [[Prior-appropriation water rights|doctrine of prior appropriation]].<ref name=":5">Jessica Lowrey, "[https://www.colorado.edu/law/sites/default/files/LOWERY%20_corrected_.pdf Home Sweet Home: How the 'Purpose of the Reservation' Affects More than Just the Quantity of Indian Water Rights]", 23 Colo. J. Int'l Envtl. L. & Pol'y 201, 206.</ref> Under prior appropriation, water rights are acquired by making a beneficial use of water.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |title=Prior appropriation doctrine |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/prior_appropriation_doctrine |access-date=2022-05-14 |website=LII / Legal Information Institute |language=en}}</ref> Water rights that are acquired earlier are senior, and have priority over later, junior water rights during water shortages due to drought or over-appropriation.<ref name=":9" /> Generally, the priority date of water rights held by Native American tribes, also called [[Winters v. United States|''Winters'' rights]], is the date the tribe's [[Indian reservation|reservation]] was established.<ref>''[[Winters v. United States|Winters v. U.S.]],'' [[List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 207|207]] [[United States Reports|U.S.]] [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/207/564/ 564, 567–578] (1908).</ref> However, courts occasionally find that the tribe's water rights carry a "time immemorial" priority date, the most senior date conceivable, for aboriginal uses of water on reserved land that overlaps with the tribe's aboriginal land.<ref name=":1">''U.S. v. Adair,'' [[wikisource:Federal Reporter/Second series/Volume 723|723]] [[Federal Reporter|F.2d]] [https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-adair-3 1394, 1414] (9th Cir. 1983).</ref> For example, in ''U.S. v. Adair,'' the court reasoned that the [[Klamath Tribes|Klamath Tribe]] necessarily had water rights with a priority date of "time immemorial" because they had lived and used the waters in central [[Oregon]] and northern [[California]] for over a thousand uninterrupted years prior to entering a treaty with the United States in 1864.<ref name=":1" />