Opinion ID: 900296
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rural Surface Water Drainage

Text: ¶ If not running on a defined watercourse, the water flowing from Mettler's to Knodels' property follows an ancient drainway, existing long before the road and culvert were built. See Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 71 S.D. 155, 161, 22 N.W.2d 737, 740 (1946). The Hutchinson County Drainage Administrator testified that the natural drainage pattern in the area of the plugged culvert was from the Mettler to the Knodel property  because the culvert was plugged, the water built up on Mettler's tract until it eventually flowed over the road. He saw no evidence of erosion on Knodels' property, but, of course, according to the Knodels, the erosion occurred in the early fifties, before the culvert was plugged. The Knodels moved to the area after the road had been there for a few years. They recall only that when the culvert was installed, the water passing through it cut an ever widening gully on its way to the lake bed. Our law relating to the drainage of surface waters in rural areas is summarized in Bruha v. Bocheck, 76 S.D. 131, 74 N.W.2d 313: the owner of the dominant land, in the exercise of a reasonable use of his property, has the right by means of ditches and drains on his property to accelerate the flow of surface waters into a natural watercourse, and into which such waters naturally drain, provided he does not permit an accumulation of water on his property and cast the same on the servient land in unusual or unnatural quantities. These principles apply to a county in the construction, improvement, and maintenance of its highways. In the performance of such work a county cannot divert surface waters into unnatural watercourses or gather water together in unnatural quantities and then cast it upon lower lands in greater volume and in a more concentrated flow than natural conditions would ordinarily permit. Damages caused thereby constitute a compensable taking or damaging of private property for a public use under Section 13, Article VI, S.D. Constitution. See Bogue v. Clay County, 75 S.D. 140, 60 N.W.2d 218 [S.D.1953], and Shuck v. City of Sioux Falls, 79 S.D. 505, 113 N.W.2d 849 [S.D.1962]. Smith v. Charles Mix County, 85 S.D. 343, 345, 346, 182 N.W.2d 223, 224 (S.D.1970). [2]