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Show 2 THE RIPARIAN DOCTRINE States bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and in Hawaii. However, the degrees of its legal and economic importance have varied markedly from one jurisdiction to another. The doctrine attained its most significant status in California and Texas. Generally based on common law.- The general rule governing adoption of the riparian doctrine in these several Western States was that the State-or its preceding Territory-had adopted the common law of England, as modified by applicable American decisions, as the rule of decision in all cases insofar as it was applicable to local conditions and not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that the riparian doctrine was part of this adopted common law. California based its adoption of riparianism squarely on adoption of the common law, with no consideration of whether the preceding Spanish or Mexican governments did or did not intend to grant riparian rights as a part of their grants of land.3 Texas based its adoption of the riparian doctrine on the Texas Republic's adoption of the common law, which the succeeding State accepted. A judicial pronouncement in 1926 added Mexican ancestry to the common law,4 but in 1962 this was rejected as dictum and lands riparian to the lower Rio Grande, held under Spanish and Mexican grants, were held to have no appurtenant riparian rights to irrigate with the river waters.5 Alaska decisions that recognized the riparian right based it on applicability of the common law, but in 1910 these decisions were repudiated by a higher court.6 This court held that the common law doctrine of riparian rights did not apply in the jurisdiction. But in 1917 the legislature made delcarations concerning rights to water in mining claims that included both banks of a stream.7 As stated by a Federal court, this legislation enacted the law of riparian rights to a limited extent.8 California.-Development of the riparian doctrine produced far more litigation and high court decisions in California than in any other Western State. It began with the Gold Rush, when the California Supreme Court resorted to analogies of the common law for solution of controversies over mining claims and uses of water for operating them.9 The disputants were *Lux v. Haggin, 69 Cal. 255, 384, 4 Pac. 919 (1884), 10 Pac. 674 (1886). \Motlv.Boyd, 116 Tex. 82, 107-108, 286 S.W. 458 (1926). 5 Valmont Plantations v. State of Texas, 163 Tex. 381, 355 S.W. (2d) 502 (1962). 6 Van Dyke v. Midnight Sun Min. & Ditch Co., Ill Fed. 85, 88, 91 (9th Cir. 1910). 7Alaska Laws 1917, ch. 57, Comp. Laws Ann. § 47-3-35 (1949), Stat. §§ 27.10.080 (Supp. 1962) and 38.05.260 (Supp. 1965). 8Balbanoffv. Kellog, 10 Alaska 11, 16-17, 118 Fed. (2d) 597, 599 (9th Cir. 1940), certiorari denied, 314 U.S. 635 (1941). 9Irwin v. Phillips, 5 Cal. 140, 145-146 (1855); Hill v. Newman, 5 Cal. 445, 446 (1855); Kelly v. Natoma Water Co., 6 Cal. 105, 108 (\856);HM v. King, 8 Cal. 336, 338 (1857); Kiddv. Laird, 15 Cal. 161, 180 (1860). |