Opinion ID: 2590136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Principles and Policies of California Water Law

Text: Courts typically classify water rights in an underground basin as overlying, appropriative, or prescriptive. ( California Water Service Co., supra, 224 Cal. App.2d at p. 725, 37 Cal.Rptr. 1.) [10] An overlying right, analogous to that of the riparian owner in a surface stream, is the owner's right to take water from the ground underneath for use on his land within the basin or watershed; it is based on the ownership of the land and is appurtenant thereto. ( California Water Service Co., supra, 224 Cal.App.2d at p. 725, 37 Cal.Rptr. 1.) One with overlying rights has rights superior to that of other persons who lack legal priority, but is nonetheless restricted to a reasonable beneficial use. Thus, after first considering this priority, courts may limit it to present and prospective reasonable beneficial uses, consonant with article X, section 2 of the California Constitution. ( Jordan v. City of Santa Barbara (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1245, 1268, 54 Cal.Rptr.2d 340.) In contrast to owners' legal priorities, we observe that [t]he right of an appropriator ... depends upon the actual taking of water. Where the taking is wrongful, it may ripen into a prescriptive right. Any person having a legal right to surface or ground water may take only such amount as he reasonably needs for beneficial purposes.... Any water not needed for the reasonable beneficial use of those having prior rights is excess or surplus water and may rightly be appropriated on privately owned land for non-overlying use, such as devotion to public use or exportation beyond the basin or watershed [citation]. When there is a surplus, the holder of prior rights may not enjoin its appropriation [citation]. Proper overlying use, however, is paramount and the rights of an appropriator, being limited to the amount of the surplus [citation], must yield to that of the overlying owner in the event of a shortage, unless the appropriator has gained prescriptive rights through the [adverse, open and hostile] taking of nonsurplus waters. As between overlying owners, the rights, like those of riparians, are correlative; [i.e.,] each may use only his reasonable share when water is insufficient to meet the needs of all [citation]. As between appropriators, however, the one first in time is the first in right, and a prior appropriator is entitled to all the water he needs, up to the amount he has taken in the past, before a subsequent appropriator may take any [citation]. Prescriptive rights are not acquired by the taking of surplus or excess water. [But] [a]n appropriative taking of water which is not surplus is wrongful and may ripen into a prescriptive right where the use is actual, open and notorious, hostile and adverse to the original owner, continuous and uninterrupted for the statutory period of five years, and under claim of right. ( California Water Service Co., supra, 224 Cal.App.2d at pp. 725-726, 37 Cal.Rptr. 1.) Even these acquired rights, however, may be interrupted without resort to the legal process if the owners engage in self-help and retain their rights by continuing to pump nonsurplus waters. (See Hi-Desert County Water Dist. v. Blue Skies Country Club, Inc. (1994) 23 Cal. App.4th 1723, 1731, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 909 ( Hi-Desert County Water Dist. ). In the present action it is important to note that no parties have claimed prescriptive rights, and the parties that stipulated to the physical solution did not seek findings under the prescriptive rights doctrine.
Article X, section 2 was added to the California Constitution in 1928 as former article XIV, section 3. The provision limits water rights to reasonable and beneficial uses. (Cal. Const., art. X, § 2.) [T]he rule of reasonable use as enjoined by ... the Constitution applies to all water rights enjoyed or asserted in this state, whether the same be grounded on the riparian right or the right, analogous to the riparian right, of the overlying land owner, or the percolating water right, or the appropriative right. ( Peabody v. City of Vallejo (1935) 2 Cal.2d 351, 383, 40 P.2d 486 ( Peabody ).) Under this new doctrine, it is clear that when a riparian or overlying owner brings an action against an appropriator, it is no longer sufficient to find that the plaintiffs in such action are riparian or overlying owners, and, on the basis of such finding, issue the injunction. It is now necessary for the trial court to determine whether such owners, considering all the needs of those in the particular water field, are putting the waters to any reasonable beneficial uses, giving consideration to all factors involved, including reasonable methods of use and reasonable methods of diversion. From a consideration of such uses, the trial court must then determine whether there is a surplus in the water field subject to appropriation. ( Tulare Dist. v. Lindsay-Strathmore Dist. (1935) 3 Cal.2d 489, 524-525, 45 P.2d 972 ( Tulare ).) We have reiterated these principles in subsequent cases, observing that although what is a reasonable use of water depends on the circumstances of each case, such an inquiry cannot be resolved in vacuo isolated from statewide considerations of transcendent importance. Paramount among these we see the ever increasing need for the conservation of water in this state, an inescapable reality of life quite apart from its express recognition in the 1928 amendment. ( Joslin v. Marin Mun. Water Dist. (1967) 67 Cal.2d 132, 140, 60 Cal. Rptr. 377, 429 P.2d 889, fn. omitted.) The constitutional amendment therefore dictates the basic principles defining water rights: that no one can have a protectable interest in the unreasonable use of water, and that holders of water rights must use water reasonably and beneficially. Crucial to our own determination here is the fact that the amendment carefully preserves riparian and overlying rights, while abolishing that aspect of the common law doctrine which entitled a riparian, as against an upstream appropriator, to enforce his right to the entire natural flow of a stream even if his use of the water was wasteful or unreasonable. ( Pleasant Valley Canal Co. v. Borror (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 742, 754, 72 Cal.Rptr.2d 1 ( Pleasant Valley ); see also Gin S. Chow v. City of Santa Barbara (1933) 217 Cal. 673, 699-700, 22 P.2d 5.)