Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130264
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 10:53:18+00:00

Document:
COLLATERAL QUESTIONS RESPECTING WATERCOURSES 95 The limitation to noninjurious changes.-lt has been held that an artificial Change in the stream is not, of itself alone, objectionable if done for a proper purpose; that the gravamen of the action is resulting injury to others. Thus, the Colorado Supreme Court observed that the defendant, in cutting an artificial channel on his own land to prevent further erosion and damage from a stream, was within his right to do on his own property such things as were thought to be for its protection, but that in the enjoy- ment of this right he could not adopt a method that would damage or create a new injury to others.376 In North Dakota, also, it was held that the defendant railroad had the right to dam and divert the Cannonball River-a nonnavigable stream-but that in doing so it was bound to see that no injury should result therefrom and to make provisions to take care of not only the normal flow but also any flood that men of ordinary experience and prudence could have foreseen; this duty being a continuing one.377 The State Highway Commission of Oregon, presumably acting properly and in accordance with the necessities of the occasion as determined by it, closed approximately 70 percent of the flood plain of a stream and thus changed the velocity and course of the flow, the result of which was a partial destruction of plaintiffs land.378 The supreme court held that this constituted a taking for a public purpose by the State within the meaning of the constitutional limitation upon the power of eminent domain. A Texas statute makes it unlawful to divert or impound the natural flow of surface streams in such manner as to damage the property of another; flood control improvements and canals for conveying water for irrigation and other purposes not being affected by the statute.379 "It is an elemental rule of law that, while a riparian, or another with proper authority, may construct dams in streams for the purpose of making reservoirs, still in doing so, they are not permitted to flood the lands of other riparians, or to back the water past the line of other owners of the streamway."380 376 Wyman v. Jones, 123 Colo. 234, 243-245, 228 Pac. (2d) 158 (1951). The underlying purpose of plaintiff in bringing this action was to prevent formation of a new river channel through his premises. In an early Colorado case, Crisman v. Heiderer, 5 Colo. 589, 596 (1881), the court acknowledged the right of an appropriator to enter the bed of the stream above his ditch and to remove obstructions that were deflecting the current from his ditch, this being implied by his appropriation, but that the most reasonable mode of effectuating this must be adopted and executed in such manner as to occasion the least possible damage to neighbors. 377 Ferderer v. Northern Pacific Ry., 11 N. Dak. 169, 180, 42 N. W. (2d) 216 (1950). 378 Tomasek v. State, 196 Oreg. 120,138, 151, 248 Pac. (2d) 703 (1952). 379 Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 7589a (1954). 380Humphreys-Mexia Co. v. Arseneaux, 116 Tex. 603, 612-614, 297 S. W. 225 (1927). The statutory right to appropriate and impound floodwaters does not authorize an appropriator or even a lower riparian owner to violate this principle. See Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. arts. 7468 (Supp. 1970) and 7469 (1954).

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