Opinion ID: 852108
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Common Law of Groundwater

Text: Finally, Appellees argue that Avon's ordinance interferes with their common-law right to use their groundwater as they wish. This contention, however, rests on the notion that the Aquifer is not a watercourse. Because we have held that the White Lick Creek Aquifer is a watercourse under Indiana law, it is not the lost water this Court addressed in Wiggins. The water there percolated the ground below the surface of the earth, in hidden recesses, without a known channel or course. Wiggins, 452 N.E.2d at 963 (quoting Taylor v. Fickas, 64 Ind. 167, 172 (1878)). Such lost water is considered at any given time to be part of the land with which it mingles. Id. at 963-64. But here we have a watercourse, and the General Assembly has granted municipalities, like Avon, the statutory authority to enact regulations concerning the withdrawal of water from a watercourse. Accordingly, neither the Township's nor WCCD's common-law right to use their water has been violated.