Opinion ID: 1170215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Rights of Parties and Appropriate Relief in Sylmar Basin

Text: The parties claiming ground water rights in the Sylmar basin are plaintiff, defendant City of San Fernando, and two private defendants, Moordigian and the Wellesley Company. Plaintiff has a prior right to the return flow derived from its deliveries of water it imports into the Sylmar basin from outside the ULARA, similar to its right to such return flow in the San Fernando basin. However, plaintiff's pueblo right, applicable to the native waters of the San Fernando basin does not extend to Sylmar basin native waters. The trial court's award of mutually prescriptive rights in the Sylmar basin's entire safe yield cannot be sustained even as a basis for determining rights in the native waters of the basin derived from precipitation within the ULARA because as previously discussed such award disregarded the exemption of cities' water rights from prescription under the 1935 amendment to Civil Code section 1007 and in addition applied incorrect principles in computing the commencement and running of the prescriptive period. Hence, the parties' rights to the native waters of the basin depend on factual issues which the trial court did not consider and which the parties will have an opportunity to litigate after remand. The record before us indicates that the parties may be able to prove the following kinds of rights in the ground waters of the Sylmar basin: 1. In addition to plaintiff's rights in the return flow attributable to its delivered imports, plaintiff may be able to establish appropriative rights to native ground water, based on its appropriations in excess of such return flow during periods of basin surplus. 2. Defendant San Fernando may show appropriative rights based on its takings during periods of basin surplus of (1) native ground water and (2) any portion of the return flow attributable to plaintiff's delivered imports not recaptured by plaintiff (hereafter referred to as unrecaptured return flow). [99] 3. The private defendants may show overlying rights to native ground water for reasonable beneficial uses on their overlying land, subject to any prescriptive rights of another party. [100] 4. The private defendants may show appropriative rights to native ground water and unrecaptured return flow based on takings for nonoverlying beneficial uses during periods of basin surplus, subject to any prescriptive rights of another party. 5. Any of the parties may be able to show that the circumstances under which such party extracted water during a period of overdraft before commencement of the present action gave it a prescriptive right against the water rights concurrently held by a private defendant. The effect of the prescriptive right would be to give to the party acquiring it and take away from the private defendant against whom it was acquired either (1) enough water to make the ratio of the prescriptive right to the remaining rights of the private defendant as favorable to the former in time of subsequent shortage as it was throughout the prescriptive period ( City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, supra, 33 Cal.2d at pp. 931-933) or (2) the amount of the prescriptive taking, whichever is less ( id. at p. 937). [101] Principles hereinbefore set forth will govern the trial court's determination on remand of (1) the existence of basin surplus or overdraft in relation to the parties' claims of appropriative rights and (2) the commencement and running of prescriptive periods affecting the parties' claims of prescriptive rights. The court should determine whether the total amount of water covered by all of the rights of the parties exceeds the available supply consisting of the basin's safe yield and any temporary surplus, less possible rights of non-parties. [102] If an insufficiency in the available supply is found to exist, such supply should be allocated as follows: (1) Plaintiff should be allocated the ground water it requires for reasonable beneficial use from the part of the supply shown to constitute return flow attributable to plaintiff's delivered imports. (2) Private defendants should be awarded the full amount of their overlying rights, less any amounts of such rights lost by prescription, from the part of the supply shown to constitute native ground water. (3) The rest of the available supply should be allocated among the holders of appropriative and prescriptive rights in accordance with the principle that the one first in time is first in right (Civ. Code, § 1414). ( City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, supra, 33 Cal.2d at p. 926; City of San Bernardino v. City of Riverside, supra, 186 Cal. 7, 28 (priority principle applies to prescriptive as well as appropriative rights).) The provisions for the Sylmar basin in the present judgment include a physical solution under which defendant San Fernando is allowed to extract up to 850 acre feet per year in excess of its restricted pumping right, plaintiff is required to reduce its extractions by the same amount, and San Fernando must pay plaintiff for each such excess acre foot the sum of $10 plus the current average cost per acre foot to plaintiff of purchasing MWD water. These provisions of the judgment are based on findings that ground water from the Sylmar basin is defendant San Fernando's sole source of supply, that to limit San Fernando to its restricted pumping right would impose undue hardship on it whereas availability of the additional ground water would enable it to meet its needs, and that the arrangement would not impose any hardship or burden on plaintiff. Plaintiff objects to the provisions on the grounds that (1) the compensation to be paid by San Fernando does not reflect plaintiff's true cost of MWD water and (2) in any event the provision is not a true physical solution by which the holder of a junior right provides a substitute supply for the holder of the senior right ( Rank v. Krug (S.D. Cal. 1956) 142 F. Supp. 1, 164-165, mod. and affd. 293 F.2d 340, 307 F.2d 96, revd. on other grounds, 372 U.S. 609 [10 L.Ed.2d 15, 83 S.Ct. 999]) but amounts to a condemnation of the plaintiff's property for the benefit of another city in violation of Code of Civil Procedure sections 1240, subdivision 3 and 1241, subdivision 3. We need not consider these contentions because on November 12, 1971, as an aftermath of the severe damage to San Fernando's water system from the earthquake of February 9, 1971, San Fernando joined the MWD and ever since has been able to purchase MWD water. Hence the court's findings have been superseded by new facts which do not support the provisions of the judgment in question. Although the present provisions for a physical solution in the Sylmar basin cannot stand, the trial court will be free on remand to consider any need for one or more other forms of physical solution which may appear from the present record or from additional proof. The general principles stated in our discussion of possible physical solutions in the San Fernando basin apply also to the Sylmar basin.