OCR Text |
Show 148 of irrigation and drainage canals, and on or along seeped areas, when such incidental consumption is associated with beneficial consumptive use of water, even though such incidental consumption is not, in itself, useful."15 Further refinements of this definition are contained in a 70-page brief, labeled Appendix 1 of California's Opening Brief. Other parties have contributed suggestions for construing the term. As used in the Compact, beneficial consumptive use was intended to provide a standard for measuring the amount of water each Basin might appropriate. This was necessary since Article III(a) and (b) imposed limits on appropria-tive rights. In early applications of the western law of appropriation, diversions were regarded as the measure of water use.16 By 1922, however, it was recognized that the amount of water diverted for irrigation purposes was not necessarily the amount consumed and lost to the stream. Some water applied to the ground would usually reappear in the stream as return flow. The term beneficial consumptive use as employed in the Compact was intended to give each Basin credit for return flow. Thus whether the limits fixed by Article III (a) and (b) have been reached or exceeded is to be determined by measuring the amount of each Basin's total appropriations through the formula, diversions less return flows. In the Compact, "beneficial consumptive use" means consumptive use (as opposed to non-consumptive use, e.g. water power) measured by the formula of diversions less return flows, for a beneficial (that is, non-wasteful) purpose. This understanding of the term is reflected "Calif. Brief, Vol. II, p. Al-4. 16See Hutchins, Selected Problems in the Law of Water Rights in the West 331 (1942). |
Source |
Original Report: State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California |