Opinion ID: 1309497
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Limitations on the Riparian Right

Text: Finally, the Board and the amici curiae water districts contend that recognition of unexercised riparian rights in federal reserved lands will disrupt the settled rights of appropriators throughout the state and impair the Board's ability to plan and manage the allocation of the state's scarce water supply. These concerns are unfounded. As we stated in In re Waters of Long Valley Creek Stream System: (13) [T]he [State Water Resources Control] Board is authorized to decide that an unexercised riparian claim loses its priority with respect to all rights currently being exercised. Moreover, to the extent that an unexercised riparian right may also create uncertainty with respect to permits of appropriation that the Board may grant after the statutory adjudication procedure is final, and may thereby continue to conflict with the public interest in reasonable and beneficial use of state waters, the Board may also determine that the future riparian right shall have a lower priority than any uses of water it authorizes before the riparian in fact attempts to exercise his right. In other words, while we interpret the Water Code as not authorizing the Board to extinguish altogether a future riparian right, the Board may make determinations as to the scope, nature and priority of the right that it deems reasonably necessary to the promotion of the state's interest in fostering the most reasonable and beneficial use of its scarce water resources.  (25 Cal.3d at pp. 358-359; italics added.) Thus the Board is fully empowered to make such determinations as to the scope, nature and priority of the unexercised federally-held riparian rights recognized herein, as the Board deems reasonably necessary to the promotion of the state's interest in fostering the most reasonable and beneficial use of its water resources. ( In re Waters of Long Valley Creek, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 359.) Although, as the Board points out, the federal government's riparian rights may have theoretically attached when the land was reserved from the public domain, the Board may nevertheless order such rights subordinated to appropriative rights currently being exercised, and may further determine that the future riparian right [of the federal government] shall have a lower priority than any uses of water it authorizes before the riparian in fact attempts to exercise his right. (25 Cal.3d at p. 359.) The trial court's decree recognized these principles in holding that United States had an unexercised riparian right to the use of waters in the Hallett Creek Stream System which may be subordinated to other uses. The trial court's decree specifically provided that holders of unexercised riparian rights in the Hallett Creek System, such as the United States, must apply to the Board or to the court for authority to exercise such rights, that such a determination shall be the subject of a supplemental decree, and that such riparian rights shall possess a priority as of the date of application to the Board or the court, as the case may be. The decree further provided that unexercised riparian rights shall be subject to all rights defined in this decree, including any supplemental decree, as the said decree exists on the date of the application ... by a riparian claimant, and shall likewise be subject to any appropriative right initiated by application ... prior to the date of application ... by a riparian claimant. The United States did not contest this ruling, and expressly conceded in both its briefs and at oral argument that its riparian right was unexercised and subject to subordination. (6d), (14) (See fn. 16.) Thus, pursuant to the trial court's decree, the United States must apply to the Board whenever it proposes to exercise its riparian right, so that the Board may evaluate the proposed use in the context of other uses and determine whether the riparian use should be permitted in light of the state's interest in promoting the most efficient and beneficial use of the state's waters. [16] This provision of the trial court's decree was fully consistent with the principles set forth in In re Waters of Long Valley Creek System, supra, 25 Cal.3d 339.