I used to think a water right was a water right. Decreed, on paper, attached to the ground — good enough. Then I watched a neighbor lose three consecutive hay cuts because his 1987 priority date kept getting shut out during compact calls. He bought that ground believing seniority didn't matter much in a normal year. Normal years are gone.
Before you close on any irrigated ground in an over-appropriated basin, pull the actual priority date and map it against historic call records for that water source. Your county water commissioner can tell you how often senior rights have called that reach in the last decade. If the answer is more than twice, model your operation assuming you get nothing in a dry year.
I've seen buyers treat a 1990s priority date like it's equivalent to a 1920s right. It is not. On paper they look identical. In practice one of them farms and one of them watches crops burn.
Anybody here bought irrigated ground with a junior right and made it work long-term? I'd genuinely like to hear how you structured it.