Opinion ID: 1170215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Appropriate Relief in San Fernando Basin

Text: In formulating its findings, conclusions and judgment, the trial court was properly mindful of its constitutional duty to protect the parties' rights in a manner that would minimize waste and maximize beneficial use of the water in controversy. (Cal. Const., art. XIV, § 3; Rancho Santa Margarita v. Vail, supra, 11 Cal.2d 501, 558-559; see City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, supra, 33 Cal.2d at pp. 925-926.) Although our conclusions require that a new judgment on remand be based on different substantive rights than those adjudicated by the trial court, the same conserving principle should guide the formulation of the new judgment. The trial court limited the parties' total extractions from the San Fernando basin to an annual 90,680 acre feet, which it found to be the 1964-1965 safe yield, reserving jurisdiction to redetermine the safe yield from time to time in accordance with changed hydrologic conditions. This finding established the basin's available supply for purposes of injunctive relief, the finding being supported by substantial evidence and there being no claim of any temporary surplus over and above the safe yield in 1964-1965. Undoubtedly injunctive relief is called for in view of the undisputed overdraft prior to rendition of the present judgment. ( City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, supra, 33 Cal.2d at p. 929.) Although by far the largest share of the basin's supply must be allocated to plaintiff, the injunction should restrict plaintiff's as well as defendants' extractions. Plaintiff asserts a need for the entire safe yield of the basin and has demonstrated such need by appropriating substantially more than that amount in 1964-1965. [94] Notwithstanding plaintiff's larger interest the defendant cities have a sufficient interest in maintaining the basin supply to warrant the restriction on plaintiff, stemming from their right to recapture the return flow attributable to their imports, which will probably increase as a result of (1) the defendants' substitution of imported water for the ground supply relinquished in deference to plaintiff's prior rights and (2) the overall expansion of their total water needs. The exercise of the return flow right would become more difficult and eventually impossible if the basin levels were continually lowered by an excess of extractions over safe yield. [95] On remand, the basin's safe yield [96] should be apportioned between amounts attributable to (1) native waters produced by precipitation within the ULARA and (2) water imported from outside the ULARA. The latter amount should in turn be apportioned among the respective quantities derived from imports by plaintiff, defendant Glendale and defendant Burbank. Plaintiff should be awarded an unadjusted pumping right to the portion of the safe yield derived from native waters and from its own imports, and defendants Glendale and Burbank should each be awarded an unadjusted pumping right to the portion of the safe yield attributable to its own imports. The new judgment should provide for adjustments in each party's pumping right to be administered by the watermaster under supervision of the court. Plaintiff's pumping right should be adjusted to take into account (1) the separate judgments entered under stipulation between plaintiff and defendants who are not parties to this appeal and (2) the imported water spread by plaintiff. The defendants' pumping rights should be adjusted to reflect return flow from their imports in excess of those for the safe yield year. Each of these adjustments requires additional comment. Pursuant to stipulations entered into between plaintiff and certain defendants who are not parties to this appeal, judgments were entered prior to the trial permitting those defendants to extract water from the San Fernando basin under specified conditions. Since none of the defendants who participated in the trial had joined in these stipulations, the judgment below provided that the annual extractions from the basin allowed plaintiff were to be reduced by the amounts extracted under the authority of the stipulated judgments. Plaintiff concedes that whatever reduction in the parties' allowed extractions are necessary to offset the extractions allowed the stipulating defendants should all be deducted from plaintiff's allowance. Plaintiff argues, however, that the amount which should be deducted is not the total amount of the stipulating defendants' extractions but only an amount which reflects the net impact of those extractions. This argument has merit. The particular uses which the stipulating defendants make of their extracted water are unique in that most or all of such water is returned to the ground after use. Some of these defendants use the water in the operation of closed air conditioning systems which return all of the water underground. Others use a combination of such extracted water and water purchased from plaintiff in industrial processes such as the production of sand and gravel in which most of the water is returned underground, the total return flow being sufficient to offset the extractions. The stipulated judgments permit the stipulating defendants to continue their extractions only as long as they do not alter their manner of use in a way that increases its consumptive effect. Under these circumstances it is inequitable to charge the stipulating defendants' gross extractions against plaintiff's pumping rights. Upon a proper showing by plaintiff, the trial court should determine what if any proportion of the extractions under each stipulated judgment represents water that is not returned to the basin in like quantity and adequate quality and should charge only that proportion of the extractions against plaintiff's unadjusted right. [97] The other kind of adjustment required to be made in plaintiff's pumping right is the crediting of plaintiff with the return flow derived from its spreading of imported water. This adjustment is necessary because such spreading was considered too irregular and unpredictable to be treated as a source of input to the ground supply in computing the safe yield. As already indicated, the provision in the present judgment enjoining spreading of imported water without the court's permission is unsupported by any sufficient showing of necessity and therefore must be eliminated. Provision should be made in the new judgment for determining the amount of credit for any such spreading, taking into account any losses from evaporation or otherwise that may be caused by the spreading operations. The pumping rights of defendants Glendale and Burbank will have to be adjusted to credit them with increases in the return flow derived from the imported water they deliver in the basin. Such return flow is likely to increase as imported water is substituted for the ground water which must be relinquished to plaintiff. To provide for the credit, the trial court should determine (1) the annual rates of deliveries of imported water by defendants Glendale and Burbank respectively which were assumed in computing the safe yield and (2) the amount of increase in the basin's ground water supply attributable to such deliveries by each defendant calculated as a percentage of such deliveries. The credit for each subsequent water year may then be determined by applying each defendant's percentage to its imports for the year in excess of the annual rate assumed for the safe yield. [98] In adjudicating a new accommodation of San Fernando basin water rights between plaintiff and defendants Glendale and Burbank, the trial court should consider the possibility of a physical solution. The usual purpose of a physical solution is to avoid a waste of water without unreasonably or adversely affecting the rights of the parties. ( Rancho Santa Margarita v. Vail supra, 11 Cal.2d 501, 559; City of Lodi v. East Bay Mun. Utility Dist. (1936) 7 Cal.2d 316, 339-341 [60 P.2d 439].) No evidence has been brought to our attention which would indicate that limiting the extractions of plaintiff and these two defendants to their respective water rights would cause any water waste. However, both defendant cities have made substantial investments in ground water extraction and distribution facilities (see City of L.A. v. City of Glendale, supra, 23 Cal.2d at p. 72), and it is possible that a strict limitation on their extractions and their consequent increased dependence on imported water would require large expenditures for new and different facilities. It is also possible that a physical solution might avoid the necessity for some or all of these expenditures without imposing any substantial burden on plaintiff. Such a solution might, for example, embody an exchange arrangement whereby under appropriate safeguards a defendant would furnish plaintiff with imported water in return for added ground water rights equivalent to (1) the quantity of such imported water plus (2) the quantity of the return flow rights the defendant would have received if it had delivered the imported water to its own territory in the basin. Whether this or any other solution is fair and just to all parties and interests concerned can only be determined by the trial court from the record and from any additional showing or evidence that may be offered and received after remand and nothing we say should be deemed restrictive of the trial court's equitable discretion in this regard. Plaintiff seeks injunctive relief against extractions by the private defendants from the San Fernando basin. As already stated, these defendants' rights to the basin ground water are all subordinate to plaintiff's pueblo right and plaintiff's right to the return flow derived from its delivered imported water as well as to such return flow rights of defendants Glendale and Burbank. Accordingly, plaintiff is entitled to have the private defendants' extractions enjoined insofar as they would constitute an overdraft on the basin supply. ( City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, supra, 33 Cal.2d at pp. 927-929.) Some of the private defendants asserted at the trial, however, that a part or all of their respective uses of the basin water did not diminish the supply available to plaintiff. Certain defendants declared, for example, that their uses were nonconsumptive in that substantially all the extracted water was returned underground after use. Other defendants claimed that geological factors such as underground faults would prevent the water they extracted from ever reaching plaintiff's wells even if it were left in the ground. The trial court did not rule on these contentions in view of its award of prescriptive rights to these defendants based on the historic gross amounts of their extractions. On remand these contentions should be considered in the formulation of any injunctive relief. Plaintiff is not entitled to such relief against extractions which have no immediate or long-range effects on its available supply. If extractions which affect plaintiff's rights nevertheless preserve water for beneficial use that would otherwise go to waste, the trial court should endeavor to arrive at a physical solution which would avoid such waste. ( City of Lodi v. East Bay Mun. Utility Dist., supra, 7 Cal.2d at pp. 339-341; Peabody v. City of Vallejo, supra, 2 Cal.2d 351, 381-383.) The trial court has broad equitable power to arrive at a just arrangement as to each defendant. (See Rancho Santa Margarita v. Vail, supra, 11 Cal.2d at pp. 558-562.) Since the San Fernando basin water rights heretofore claimed by defendants Glendale and Burbank have not included the return flow rights which we have concluded are theirs, they have not had occasion to seek injunctive protection of these rights. They will be entitled to apply for such protection after remand by moving to amend their pleadings or other appropriate procedure. (See Bank of America v. Superior Court (1942) 20 Cal.2d 697, 702 [128 P.2d 357]; Pillsbury v. Superior Court (1937) 8 Cal.2d 469.)