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Show PERCOLATING WATERS 637 The principal dispute between parties concerned water rights and the possibility of their becoming prescriptive. Said the court:43 Respondents assert that the rights of all the parties, including both overlying users and appropriators, have become mutually prescrip- tive against all the other parties and, accordingly, that all rights are of equal standing, with none prior or paramount. Appellant, on the other hand, contends that in reality no prescriptive rights have been acquired, and that there has been no actionable invasion or injury of the right of any party using water because each party has been able to take all the water it needed and no party has in any manner prevented a taking of water by any other party. The supreme court held that there was an invasion, to some extent at least, of the rights of both overlying owners and appropriators when the overdraft first occurred. No user was immediately prevented from taking the quantity of water he needed. The invasion was only a partial one because it did not completely oust the original owners of the water rights; both original owners and appropriators continued to pump all the water they needed. But the pumping by each group produced an overdraft which "necessarily interfered with the future possibility of pumping by each of the other parties by lowering the water level."44 With respect to a matter that has been the subject of controversy, the California Supreme Court observed:45 We need not determine whether the overlying owners involved here retained simply a part of their original overlying rights or whether they obtained new prescriptive rights to use water. (See Glatts v. Henson, 31 Cal. (2d) 368-371 (188 P. 2d 745).) The question might become important in order to ascertain the rights of the parties in the event of possible future contingencies, but these may never happen. The conclusion of the supreme court with respect to the main issue was: We hold, therefore, that prescriptive rights were established by appropriations made in the Western Unit subsequent to the commencement of the overdraft,'that such rights were acquired against both overlying owners and prior appropriators, that the overlying owners and prior appropriators also obtained, or pre- served, rights by reason of the water which they pumped, and that the trial court properly concluded that the production of water in the unit should be limited by a proportionate reduction in the amount which each party had taken throughout the statutory period. .46 43207Pac. (2d)at 30. 44 207 Pac. (2d) at 30,32. 45207Pac. (2d)at32. 46 207 Pac. (2d) at 32-33. |
