---
kind: "range"
citation: "30 U.S.C. §§ 50–52"
title: "30"
from: "50"
to: "52"
count: 3
release: "119-102"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/30/50..52"
---

# §50. Grants to States or corporations not to include mineral lands


No act passed at the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, granting lands to States or corporations to aid in the construction of roads or for other purposes, or to extend the time of grants made prior to the 30th day of January 1865 shall be so construed as to embrace mineral lands, which in all cases are reserved exclusively to the United States, unless otherwise specially provided in the act or acts making the grant.


# §51. Water users’ vested and accrued rights; enumeration of uses; protection of interest; rights-of-way for canals and ditches; liability for injury or damage to settlers’ possession


Whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same; and the right-of-way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes herein specified is acknowledged and confirmed; but whenever any person, in the construction of any ditch or canal, injures or damages the possession of any settler on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party injured for such injury or damage.[^1]


# §52. Patents or homesteads subject to vested and accrued water rights


All patents granted, or homesteads allowed, shall be subject to any vested and accrued water rights, or rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights,[^1] as may have been acquired under or recognized by [section 51 of this title](/usc/30/51.md).