Opinion ID: 2604379
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Common Law Immunity For Passing Water Through Impoundment.

Text: City also contends that the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury that city was lawfully entitled to release from the impoundment in city's sewage treatment ponds the same volume of effluent as ran into them. Plaintiffs respond that city was not entitled to any instruction about releasing as much water from an impoundment as runs in because such a rule is limited to natural waterways, not to artificially collected effluent impoundments, and thus is not law applicable to this case. We agree; the rule invoked is limited to impoundments of naturally occurring runoff within a natural waterway. Crawford v. Cobbs & Mitchell Co., 121 Or. 628, 637-38, 253 P. 3, 257 P. 16 (1927) (upper riparian owner may release flood waters providing he does not swell the natural flow of the stream below the dam).