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Show 60 CHARACTERISTICS OF WATERCOURSE The sides and bottom of the stream channel may be impervious in some places and not in others; where not impervious the soil across and through which the channel is formed necessarily contains water in greater or less degree, and this water-bearing zone may be very limited in extent or may extend to considerable depths and for considerable distances on each side. The water-bearing zone adjacent to a previous surface channel is called in the court decisions the "underflow", "subflow," or "supporting flow" of the surface stream. Where this underflow or subflow exists-as it does frequently though not invariably-it is a component part of the watercourse part of which lies above and part below the ground surface. Essential Features The underflow or subflow of a surface stream consists of water slowly finding its way through the soil, sand, and gravel constituting the bed of the open stream,191 or through the lands under the bed or immediately adjacent at the sides of the stream,192 which supports the surface stream in its natural state or feeds it directly.193 To constitute underflow, it is essential that the surface and subsurface flows be in contact and that the subsurface flow shall have a definite direction corresponding to the surface flow. In a leading decision rendered in 1899, the California Supreme Court said that:194 It is agreed that all the waters of the San Fernando valley, except what is lost by evaporation or consumed in plant life, flow out through the narrow pass between the eastern extremity of the Cahuenga range and the Verdugo hills, either on or beneath the surface, and there is abundant testimony to warrant the conclusion that at ordinary stages of the river the water flowing on the surface and that which is beneath the surface are in intimate contact and moving in the same direction.* * * Subterranean Side Flow The underflow may and often does include water moving not only in the loose, porous material that constitutes and underlies the bed of the surface stream, but also the lateral extensions of the water-bearing material on each side of the surface channel.195 It moves along the course of the stream and on each side, tending to reach farther laterally with increases in volume.196 But it 191 Verdugo Canyon Water Co. v. Verdugo, 152 Cal. 655, 663, 93 Pac. 1021 (1908); Texas Co. v. Burkett, 117 Tex. 16, 28, 296 S. W. 273 (1927);/« re Johnson Creek, 159 Wash. 629, 630-631, 294 Pac. 566 (1930). 192Maricopa County M.W.C. Dist. v. Southwest Cotton Co., 39 Ariz. 65, 96, 4 Pac. (2d) 369 (1931); Larsen v. Apollonio, 5 Cal. (2d) 440, 444, 55 Pac. (2d) 196 (1936). i93Huffner v. Sawday, 153 Cal. 86, 92-93, 94 Pac. 424 (1908); San Bernardino v. Riverside, 186 Cal. 7, 14, 198 Pac. 784 (1921). 194 Los Angeles v.Pomeroy, 124 Cal. 597, 617, 57 Pac. 585 (1899). 195 Larsen v. Apollonio, 5 Cal. (2d) 440, 444, 55 Pac. (2d) 196 (1936). 196 Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U.S. 46, 114-115 (1907). |