Opinion ID: 1170215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Prescriptive Rights as Limitation Upon Restricted Pumping Quotas

Text: (22) Under the judgment each party that was awarded a prescriptive right in the Sylmar basin was also assigned a restricted pumping quota which was approximately 15 percent greater than such party's prescriptive right. These quotas were arrived at by dividing the 1964-1965 safe yield, found to be 6,210 acre feet, among the parties in proportion to their prescriptive rights. [90] The quotas were not based on any finding that the parties had actually appropriated those amounts. It was improper to limit total pumping to safe yield by allocating quotas based simply upon a computation of proportionate increases in each party's prescriptive right. [91] It was not a foregone conclusion that each party's need for water would increase in exact proportion to its prescriptive right or that other entities would not be desirous and able to apply the increment in supply to other beneficial uses. The Pasadena decision states that where the judgment restricts total pumping to safe yield by making proportionate reductions in each party's prescriptive right, it is proper to provide that, if the amount of the safe yield is increased, the permissible takings shall be increased proportionately up to the amount of the `present unadjusted right' [prescriptive right] of each party. The adjudication thus applies to existing rights, and there is no declaration as to future rights in water to which a party has no present right. (33 Cal.2d at p. 937.) Appropriative and prescriptive rights in ground basin water are limited to amounts actually taken. ( Eden Township Water Dist. v. City of Hayward (1933) 218 Cal. 634, 638 [24 P.2d 492]; California Water Service Co. v. Edward Sidebotham & Son, supra, 224 Cal. App.2d 715, 727 (rejecting claim to water in excess of actual appropriation based on theory of proportionate prescriptive right).) If at the time of judgment the parties' actual appropriations had increased so as to create a condition of overdraft despite enlargement of the available supply, a restriction on the parties' extractions would be a proper means for preventing depletion of the basin. ( City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, supra, 33 Cal.2d at p. 924.) The trial court lacked authority, however, to allocate unappropriated quantities of water for future taking. ( City of San Bernardino v. City of Riverside, supra, 186 Cal. 7, 25, 30-31.)