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Show 74 CHARACTERISTICS OF WATERCOURSE flows from the California side of the lake into Nevada. There the Truckee terminates in another lake-Pyramid Lake-which has no surface outlet. In the many-sided controversy over the waters of Lake Tahoe-which has persisted in one form or another for decades-have been questions of use of water of Truckee River, use of the lake for temporary storage of the inflow, damage from maintenance of high lake levels, maintenance of the natural rim at the outlet, water requirements within the Tahoe basin, protection against contamination of the marginal lake water by return flow in the form of sewage, and water requirements of the Pyramid Lake Indians. Negotiations are underway in an effort to consummate an interstate compact to provide an equitable solution for major water problems in the Tahoe basin and Truckee River watershed.274 The intrastate Clear Lake in California has a number of tributaries and one outlet-Cache Creek, which flows from the mountainous Clear Lake basin out upon the valley floor of Sacramento Valley and into Sacramento River. Early litigation involved conflicting claims, riparian and appropriative, to the use of waters of Cache Creek in the foothill and valley agricultural lands. What was apparently the first attempt to control the outlet of the lake by a milldam ended in 1868.275 Forty-five years later, the owners of the irrigation company which had acquired the water rights on Cache Creek built a dam at the lake outlet to control the flow into Cache Creek. In 1920, during an extremely dry period, the company was contemplating a deepening of the outlet channel to increase the outflow into Cache Creek when a proceeding was commenced 274 Much pertinent information and analysis of Tahoe water problems are brought together by King, Keith C, and Warren, Earl, Jr., "The Tahoe Controversy-Compact or Litigation?" (December 16, 1959), published by California-Nevada Interstate Compact Commission of California, Sacramento, California. 275 The dam was so operated as to cause flooding of littoral land and, after ineffective recourse to the courts, it was destroyed by a mob: U.S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 100, "Report of Irrigation Investigations in California": Wilson, J. M. "Irrigation Investigations on Cache Creek," pp. 182-183 (1901). This article states that "tradition reports that the presiding judge, whose sympathies were evidently with the sufferers," decided that his court could furnish no legal remedy but "intimated that there was a law 'higher than statute or procedure of court,' which when the necessity arose might be invoked. A few days later a force of citizens of Lake County appeared at the mill, and, after carefully removing everything that was movable, destroyed the works. This was in 1868. The milldam and mill were never replaced, but Lake County is still paying interest on bonds issued to liquidate the damages incurred through this appeal to 'higher law.' " Harding, S. T., "Water in California," p. 36 (1960), cites this Clear Lake-Cache Creek incident as an example of well-organized "extralegal" action in solving water rights problems. After describing the circumstances in detail, he refers to reports of the group action as including accounts of its organization, placing of pickets to prevent seeking of outside relief, and its general military type, and concludes by stating that while it was sometimes referred to as "riot action," nevertheless it was not the usual impulsive type of action but a deliberate and planned undertaking. |
