§ 48-3185 — Conveyance of land to district upon adoption of resolution of exclusion; mortgages by owners of inchoate titles; approval by state certification board

A. Upon adoption of a resolution of exclusion by the board of supervisors, and if no appeal is prosecuted therefrom within thirty days as provided in this chapter, each landowner within the district who desires irrigation water for his district lands from the proposed district works shall convey to the district a good and marketable title, free and clear of encumbrances, including all district and other taxes which became a lien prior to the conveyance, to the proportion of his irrigable land within the district after the exclusion that the excluded irrigable lands bear to the total acreage within the district before the exclusion. The land so conveyed to the district shall be a legal subdivision or rectangular part of a legal subdivision, or irrigable land selected by the grantor, subject to approval of the board of directors, or if the irrigable land owned by the grantor is an irregular tract, the land to be conveyed to the district may be an irregular tract if approved by the board of directors. The consideration for the conveyances to the district shall be the benefits to be derived by the grantor under this chapter. No owner of land within the district shall be entitled to irrigation water from the district works until he has conveyed to the district the percentage of land required by this section.

B. If an entryman of public lands is unable to convey title to the district to any part of his entry until a water supply is available therefor, or a purchaser from the state of land under a contract is unable to convey title to the district to any part of such land until the land is paid for in full, the board of directors may, in lieu of the conveyance, accept a mortgage on the entire entry or parcel under contract for an amount equal to the estimated value of the acreage of land that the entryman or purchaser of land would be required to convey to the district if his land were privately owned, the value to be estimated by the board of directors of the district as of the date when the land would be required to be sold if it were conveyed to the district pursuant to this section. The mortgage shall be payable at a reasonable time after a water supply is available for the entry or state land under contract and the proceeds therefrom shall become a part of the fund realized from the sale of lands conveyed to the district and be disbursed to the owners of excluded lands as a part of the fund.

C. If a landowner refuses or neglects to make a conveyance of his land to the district for more than sixty days after written request therefor by the board of directors, his lands shall be subject to exclusion from the district by order of the board of directors.

D. The state certification board shall not certify the bonds of an irrigation district until ninety per cent of the acreage of privately owned lands required by this section to be conveyed to the district have been conveyed to and accepted by the district.