Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130319
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 18:54:18+00:00

Document:
15 0 PROPERTY NATURE OF WATER AND WATER RIGHTS becomes personal property.57 The language used in that early case, said the court, "is apt for the disposition of the question to which it was addressed, but it is by no means tantamount to a decision that water becomes personalty as soon as it is diverted from its natural channel or situation. No such question was involved in that case."58 The handling of this matter in Stanislaus Water Company v. Bachman was approved in a later, decision, in which it was held that water stored in a reservoir is "real property, the right to the use of which may become appurtenant to land."S9 Water diverted for irrigation or in use therefor.-Water diverted from a natural source of supply into artificial conduits for the purpose of conducting it to land for irrigation has been uniformly classed in California as real property, and it does not change its character from realty to personalty upon being delivered upon the land for the irrigation thereof.60 The reason for this rule is that in the case of water delivered in ditches or pipes for irrigation purposes, severance from the realty does not take place at all.61 Such water "remains real property throughout the process and until it serves its purpose by being absorbed into the land which it moistens."62 Water severed from the realty. -In Stanislaus Water Company v. Bachman, the supreme court considered it evident that water may become personalty by being severed from the land and confined in portable receptacles.63 Water separated from the source or body of which it constitutes a part may be bought and sold like other commodities in the character of personal property, such as when it is supplied through artificial conduits for domestic use. The same reasoning applies to water supplied for industrial use.64 Hence, water delivered to an oil company for use in its drilling operations no more partakes of the characteristics of realty than does domestic water delivered by a municipality to its inhabitants for use within their homes or to an industrial plant for use within its factory. In this case, such water was held to have become severed from the real property on which it was produced, and to have become personalty. *!People ex rel. Heyneman v. Blake, 19 Cal. 579, 594 (1862). ksStanislaus Water Co. v. Bachman, 152 Cal. 716, 93 Pac. 858 (1908). S9Copeland v. Fairview Land & Water Co., 165 Cal. 148, 153-154, 131 Pac. 119 (1913). 60Stanislaus Water Co. v. Bachman, 152 Cal. 716, 726, 728, 93 Pac. 858 (1908). See also Fawkes v. Reynolds, 190 Cal. 204, 211, 211 Pac. 449 (1922); Relovich v. Stuart, 211 Cal. 422, 428, 295 Pac. 819 (1931); Schimmel v. Martin, 190 Cal. 429, 432, 213 Pac. 33 (1923); Chrisman v. Southern California Edison Co., 83 Cal. App. 249, 258, 256 Pac. 618 (1927), hearing denied by supreme court (1927); Northern California Power Co., Consolidated v. Flood, 186 Cal. 301, 305, 199 Pac. 315 (1921). 61 Copeland v. Fairview Land & Water Co., 165 Cal. 148, 154, 131 Pac. 119 (1913). 62Stanislaus Water Co. v. Bachman, 152 Cal. 716, 728, 93 Pac. 858 (1908). 63Id. at 725. 64Lewis v. Scazighini, 130 Cal. App. 722, 724, 20 Pac. (2d) 359 (1933), hearing denied by supreme court (1933).

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