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Reasonable use rule

Many states, especially in the western United States, claim ownership of groundwater and allocate the resource through an appropriative system just as they would any surface right. Typically water rights are appropriated based on each aquifer's sustainable yield, and once all the rights are granted no further permits will be issued. Some states allow the permits to be marketed and some do not. Where the water is not owned by the state and the tort law proves to be an inadequate means to prevent overproduction, states have created administrative regulatory agencies to allocate groundwater rights between competing landowners. In those cases the administrative law essentially supplants the tort law, making the tort remedy (or lack thereof) irrelevant.