Ok, so let me try to be the devil’s advocate voice of reason here.

First, being an eastern state, Florida has much more water available than western states do. That means they use the Riparian system of water rights. In this system, landowners whose properties adjoin a body of water have the right to make reasonable use of that water. In other words, the water rights are part of the land. However, you still can’t divert water out out of the watershed without due consideration for the downstream landowners.

In times of drought or scarcity, allotments are fixed in proportion to frontage on the water source. If a property has 1 percent of the source’s length, then it gets 1 percent of the allotted water.