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Show ELEMENTS OF WATERCOURSE 49 passed through it. However, a slough that led from Sacramento River, California, and did not return, but which served simply as a conduit by which some of the floodwaters of the river occasionally escaped into lower lands adjoining, as they did at other low places along the banks, was held not to be a watercourse.140 A certain California slough was originally a branch of Mariposa Creek, from which it received a portion of the streamflow thereof.141 The flow from the creek was later cut off by filling in the upper part of the slough, but water continued to flow into the lower part from rainfall on adjoining lands and from drains of an irrigation district. Evidence as to the character of the slough channel where it crossed the lands of the parties was favorable and conclusive. The court held that the artificial separation of the slough from Mariposa Creek and the cutting off of the creek waters did not destroy the character of the slough as a natural channel or watercourse. Source of Supply Particularity of the source of supply is not material to the classification of a watercourse, provided the source is determinable. A single stream of water may have one or more of a large number of possible sources of supply. The Idaho Supreme Court quoted from Corpus Juris to the effect that:142 'The particular source is immaterial. Thus, the supply of a natural watercourse may come from springs, swamp, surface water, artificially controlled water over which the creator has lost control, artesian wells, lake, or a pond formed by surface water, the overflow of a lake because of rainfall, or from a glacier." The Ultimate Source It is pertinent to quote here the observations of high courts of two arid Western States as to the ultimate sources of supply of flowing streams and their relation to the water sheds they drain. The Colorado Supreme Court stated:143 The volume of these streams is made up of rains and snowfall on the surface, the springs which issue from the earth, and the water percolating under the surface, which finds its way to the streams running through the watersheds in which it is found. It is likewise proper to take judicial notice of the fact that upon account of the elevation of the state and other lA0Lamb v. Reclamation Dist. No. 108, 73 Cal. 125, 134-135, 14 Pac. 625 (1887). 141 Haun v. De Vaurs, 97 Cal. App. (2d) 841, 842-843, 218 Pac. (2d) 996 (1950). 142 Scott v. Watkins, 63 Idaho 506, 517-518, 122 Pac. (2d) 220 (1942), quoting from 67 C.J. Waters § 5 (1954). See also Hildebrandt v. Montgomery, 113 Oreg. 687, 691, 234 Pac. 267 (1925). 143In re German Ditch & Res. Co., 56 Colo. 252, 271, 139 Pac. 2 (1913). 450-486 O - 72 - 6 |
