The American West, with growing population in many of its areas, has a powerful thirst for water. The list of thirsty consumers of water certainly includes agriculture and industry.

Water demands our attention and public involvement.

The multiple realities of who has control of water in the West and who wants it is a pivotal issue of the 21st century. For the purpose of considering water, North Dakota definitely shows its relationship with the states of the West, with distinctions of our own. West Dakota country might have more commonality with the eastern half of Montana than with the part of our state between the Missouri and Red rivers.

The cause of the two regions' perpetual embrace is the water coursing through the Missouri River.

Who owns it? Not the Army Corps of Engineers, though it may act that way at times. The first paragraph of a section of the Century Code declares it succinctly: "All waters within the limits of the state … belong to the public and are subject to appropriation for beneficial use …"

A load of meanings is packed into these few words. It means we'll be discussing, legislating, arbitrating, protecting and coveting water until, in the language of treaties, "rivers run no more."

North Dakota might share a characteristic of water law with 17 states in the West that have "the prior appropriation doctrine" as the guiding principle of law, but there are significant differences, state to state. Prior appropriation basically means who was using - note, not owning - the water first and who has priority in the kind of use - domestic and municipal, irrigation and so forth.

One thing North Dakota isn't dealing with in the way the water drama is playing out in California and Colorado and elsewhere is that cities and metro areas are buying or leasing water rights, mainly agricultural water rights. Articles appear all the time that some water district in farm country California has sold farmers' water rights to Southern California cities - not that many farmers object; the water might bring more income than crops.

More than farmers are getting into the act: A school district in Colorado holds a water right on a ditch and can draw up to .99 cubic feet per second. The school board is pondering selling the water right. Its value hasn't been assessed for 10 years; then it was calculated at $220,000.

We're not there. We do face a growing thirst for the Missouri River, demand coming from the northwest and southwest regions of the state and the present and future reality that its water might be drawn by the Red River Valley. The Legislature has embedded delivery of water to the valley as a priority named in Title 61 of the statute book.

But look at this as a sobering development: There's a giant sucking sound to the south and west of us. It's the sound of water being devoured. The eyes of the monsters - Dallas, even Phoenix - are far-seeing, all the way to the Missouri River. It's not as far-fetched as it might seem; there are longer pipelines than would be needed from the bend of the river in far western Missouri to reach Dallas. Everything that might affect that stretch of river would be felt upstream all the way to Three Forks.

The river's water, our lifeblood.