1. (a) In accordance with Texas Water Code §11.303(l), a person may directly divert and use water from a stream or watercourse for domestic and livestock purposes on land owned by the person and that is adjacent to the stream without obtaining a permit. Manner of diversion may be by pumping or by gravity flow. Such riparian domestic and livestock use is a vested right that predates the prior appropriation system in Texas and is superior to appropriative rights. A vested riparian right is only to the normal flow in the stream, not to the storm water, floodwater, or authorized releases from storage for downstream use.
2. (b) In accordance with Texas Water Code §11.142, a person may construct on his own property a dam or reservoir with a normal storage of not more than 200 acre-feet of state water for domestic and livestock purposes without obtaining a permit. The reservoir may be on-channel, adjacent to the stream, or on a contiguous piece of property through which flows the stream from which the water is diverted. For purposes of this subsection, normal storage means the conservation storage of the reservoir, i.e., the amount of water the reservoir may hold before water is released uncontrolled through a spillway or into a standpipe.
3. (c) A person's domestic and livestock use may not unreasonably interfere with another's domestic and livestock use. A dam and impoundment under subsection (b) of this section must allow sufficient inflows to pass-through downstream for the benefit of other domestic and livestock uses. Such dam may not be located on a navigable stream.
4. (d) The incidental use of a reservoir by free-ranging wild game and fur-bearing animals that may be harvested by hunters and trappers who pay a fee or other compensation to hunt or trap on the property does not constitute a use for which a permit must be obtained for an otherwise exempt domestic and livestock reservoir. Additionally, the use of water that is used in making products from a family garden or orchard that are traded with a neighbor or used in a local bake sale or potluck dinner does not constitute a use for which a permit must be obtained for an otherwise exempt domestic and livestock reservoir.

Source Note:The provisions of this §297.21 adopted to be effective February 24, 1999, 24 TexReg 1162.