[§174C-58]  Revocation of permits. After a hearing, the commission may suspend or revoke a permit for:

(1)  Any materially false statement in the applicationfor the water permit, a modification of a permit term, or any materially falsestatement in any report or statement of fact required of the user pursuant tothis part.

(2)  Any wilful violation of any condition of thepermit.

(3)  Any violation of any provision of this chapter.

(4)  Partial or total nonuse, for reasons other thanconservation, of the water allowed by the permit for a period of fourcontinuous years or more.  The commission may permanently revoke the permit asto the amount of water not in use unless the user can prove that the user'snonuse was due to extreme hardship caused by factors beyond the user'scontrol.  The commission and the permittee may enter into a written agreementthat, for reasons satisfactory to the commission, any period of nonuse may notapply towards the four-year revocation period.  Any period of nonuse which is causedby a declaration of water shortage pursuant to section 174C-62 shall not applytowards the four-year period of forfeiture.

The commission may cancel a permit, permanently andin whole, with the written consent of the permittee. [L 1987, c 45, pt of §2]

 

Case Notes

 

  The state water code both expressly and impliedly authorizesthe commission to issue a water use permit that allocates water in excess of afour-year time frame; paragraph (4) is an enforcement mechanism by which thecommission may suspend or revoke a water use permit upon knowledge that apermitted allocation of water, which the commission has expected to be usedwithin a four-year time frame, has not been utilized.  103 H. 401, 83 P.3d 664.

  Where it could not be said that closure of hotel and golfcourse would have no impact on applicant's proposed uses in light of commissionon water resource management's findings and conclusions pursuant to the"reasonable-beneficial use" standard set forth in §174C-49 anddefined in §174C-3, commission's reliance on paragraph (4), allowing applicantfour years to fulfill its proposed uses before the commission may suspend orrevoke a permit, was misplaced; as commission failed to consider the impact theclosures may have on applicant's proposed uses when it made its proposed useallocation decision, proposed use permit vacated.  116 H. 481, 174 P.3d 320.