72-5-38: [State water rights for highway purposes and airports; nonforfeiture for failure to use.]

Neither the state nor any agency, department, bureau or commission thereof holding any water rights to be used for the construction, reconstruction, maintenance or repair of public roads, streets, highways and airports, whether surface, subsurface, artesian or underground and whatever the manner of acquisition, shall lose or forfeit such water right for failure to beneficially use all or any part of such water right.