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Show CALIFORNIA 677 facts revealed an overdraft of the ground water supply of the Raymond Basin which first started in 1913-1914. Between 1913-1914 and 1937 when the suit was brought, the pumpage from the Raymond Basin exceeded the safe yield in all but 2 years. Despite the overdraft, the parties continued to pump water from the basin which resulted in a continued overdraft with consequent lowering of the water table.68 The overdraft was plainly observable in the wells of the parties. The supreme court held that when the overdraft first occurred there was an invasion to some extent of the rights of the overlying owners and prior appropriators. Although no taker was prevented from taking the amount of water which he needed, the injury commenced from the date of the first overdraft (since a continuation of the overdraft would eventually lead to a depletion of the supply of ground water in the Raymond Basin, thereby rendering the supply of ground water inadequate to satisfy the needs of all takers). "The injury thus did not involve an immediate disability to obtain water, but, rather, it consisted of the continual lowering of the level and gradual reducing of the total amount of stored water, the accumulated effect of which, after a period of years, would be to render the supply insufficient to meet the needs of the rightful owners."69 The. supreme court held that prescriptive rights had been acquired by appropriations which occurred after the start of the overdraft and that such rights were acquired against both the overlying owners and the prior appropriators. The court further held that the overlying owners and the prior appropriators acquired, or retained, rights by reason of their continued pumping of water from the Raymond Basin. The supreme court adopted the trial court's conclusion that "the production of water in the unit should be limited by a proprortionate reduction in the amount which each party had taken throughout the statutory period." TO In the presentation of the case by the respondents, a stipulation was entered by the appellant and the respondents which provided that "all of the water taken by each of the parties to this stipulation and agreement was, at the time it was taken, taken openly, notoriously, and under a claim of right, which claim of right was continuously and uninterruptedly asserted by it to be and was adverse to any and all claims of each and all of the other parties joining herein."71 On the basis of this stipulation, the respondents argued that all rights had become "mutually prescriptive" with no rights prior or paramount. This stipulation was the subject of extensive attention and comment by all the succeeded to this function previously performed by the State Department of Public Works, and in turn was succeeded by the State Water Resources Control Board. 6833Cal. (2d) at 922, 930. 6933Cal. (2d)at929. 7O33Cal. (2d)at933. 71 33 Cal. (2d) at 928. |