Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130374
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:29:54+00:00

Document:
INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE DUAL WATER RIGHTS SYSTEMS 205 In some States in which both the riparian and the appropriation doctrines are recognized, the riparian right has been shorn of unreasonable advantages and the riparian proprietor held to the same standard of reasonable beneficial use as the appropriator. The measures taken to curb the unreasonable assertion of riparian claims have not attempted to abrogate riparian rights actually in use, nor to interfere with uses of water that conformed to reasonable standards. They have purported to invoke the police power of the State in regulating uses of water in the public interest. The question of possible confiscation of a right in actual use was touched upon by the United States Supreme Court in discussing the California constitutional amendment of 1928.215 The case arose upon claims for compensation by riparian owners for deprivation of the natural overflow of the San Joaquin River by reason of operation of Friant Dam. The Court acknowledged that in framing the amendment there had been a studied purpose to preserve existing values, but said: "We must conclude that by the Amendment California unintentionally destroyed and confiscated a recognized and adjudicated private property right, or that it remains compensable although no longer enforcible by injunction. The right of claimants at least to compensation prior to the Amendment was entirely clear." The implication is that if the effect of the amendment has been to deny compensation as well as injunctive relief to a riparian owner who had been accepting the benefits of natural overflow and deriving value from them, the amendment would have been unconstitutional. Control measures put into operation in several States went considerably farther than the regulation of rights actually in use. Their effect was to subject unused riparian rights to loss, in some cases with and in other cases without compensation. These measures met the approval of the courts of those particular States. On the other hand, limiting statutes passed by the legislatures of two States-California and Texas-were held inoperative as against the water rights of riparian landowners.216 It has been insisted at various times that to subject the unused riparian right to loss, in a State in which the riparian owner's right to the flow of the water has been previously recognized, amounts to a denial of due process. However, the United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit,217 agreed with the Oregon Su- preme Court218 that the Oregon statute219 was valid. The United States Supreme Court, in affirming the judgment, passed over that particular question as not 215 United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725, 751-755 (1950). 216Tulare In. Dist. v. Lindsay-Strathmore In. Dist., 3 Cal. (2d) 489, 530-531, 45 Pac. (2d) 472 (1935); Freeland v. Peltier, 44 S. W. (2d) 404, 408 (Tex. Civ. App. 1931). 1X1 California-Oregon Power Co. v. Beaver Portland Cement Co., 73 Fed. (2d) 555, 568-569 (9th Cir. 1934). 218In re Hood River, 114 Oreg. 112, 173-182, 227 Pac. 1065 (1924). 2I9Oreg. Laws 1909, ch. 216, § 70, Rev. Stat. § 539.010 (Supp. 1955).

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