in whole or part, by most of the states in the Western United States that had an arid climate. New Mexico New Mexico enacted its appropriate Surface-Water Code in 1907. Later, in 1931, New Mexico enacted the Underground Water Law that adapted the state's surface law to ground water. Montana The prior-appropriation doctrine was adopted in 1973 in Montana under the 1973 Water Use Act. Later, they then passed the Montana Ground Water Assessment Act in 1991. Texas In 1967, Texas passed the Water Rights Adjudication Act in regards to surface waters such that the allocation of these waters was under a unified permit system. Criticism Even though water markets increasingly gain ground, many criticize the prior appropriation system for failing to adequately adjust to society's evolving values and needs. Environmentalists and recreational river-users demand more water be left in rivers and streams, but courts have been slow to accept these requests as beneficial uses. Conversely, the tool of beneficial use is too tied to custom to encourage users to conserve. An appropriator who uses water inefficiently retains the right to the full allotment, but an appropriator who uses only a portion risks losing the right to the rest, and water right markets remain too illiquid to purchase any excess. As a result, the vast majority of water in the West still is allocated to agricultural uses despite cries for additional water from growing cities. High demand can cause an over-appropriation of the waters, in which there are more water rights for a particular stream than water actually available. This leads to an apparent inefficiency: if a water source is over-appropriated, the latest users will almost never see water from their claims. But without those claims, excess water from an unusually wet year will go to waste. In other goods Water is not the only public good that has been subject to prior appropriation. The same first in time, first in right theory has been used in the United States to encourage and give a legal framework for other commercial activities. The early prospectors and miners in the California Gold Rush of 1849, and later gold and silver rushes in the western United States, applied appropriation theory to mineral deposits. The first one to discover and begin mining a deposit was acknowledged to have a legal right to mine. Because appropriation theory in mineral lands and water rights developed in