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Show WATER POSSESSION BY ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURES 149 of the shareholder to take her share of the water in this way, the court held that when she had the water to which she was entitled delivered into her private pipeline, it became her personal property, subject to her own use and disposal in any way desired so long as the rights of others were not interfered with. In a case involving foreclosure of a mortgage on a system of waterworks, the Supreme Court of Washington observed that while water in a stream is deemed in law a part of the land over which it flows, nevertheless after being diverted from the original channel and conveyed elsewhere in pipes for distribution or sale, it loses its original character and becomes personal property.53 The same court held in a later case that water in an artificial ditch is private and personal property and, as such, it is subject to an agreement for its sale or use and may be made a consideration for exchange of a right of way for a ditch.54 The water so agreed upon is as much the property of the person to whom it is given as would be money paid for the right of way if purchased for a cash consideration. The California Rule The rule in California is that water in canals and other artificial conduits or reservoirs does not become personalty as soon as it is diverted from its natural channel or situation, but usually retains its character as realty until severance from the artificial conduits is completed by delivery therefrom to the consumer; and that water in use in irrigation is not personal property. Water flowing in conduits or stored in reservoirs. -Water while flowing by right in a canal or pipe, which is real property, is likewise real property.ss In Stanislaus Water Company v. Bachman, the California Supreme Court stated that where the right to water in pipes and the pipes themselves constitute an appurtenance to real property, which is usually the case, the water usually retains its character as realty until severance is completed by its delivery from the pipes to the consumer.56 The court distinguished the decision in a very early case, which was believed to have given rise to the mistaken notion that when water is confined in artificial channels it thereupon ment and applied for its connection with the main company line within the irrigated territory. However, new officers were elected and the shareholders directed the board not to make connections that would divert any culinary water outside the territory covered by the company's canal system. Plaintiffs pipeline would do this. Plaintiff sued to compel connection. The supreme court held that the board owed the legal duty to distribute to the stockholding plaintiff her proper proportion of the available water, and that a regulation limiting the use of culinary water to homes and premises within the irrigated area was an unwarranted interference with the rights of nonconsenting shareholders. s3Dunsmuir v. Port Angeles Gas, Water, Elec. Light & Power Co., 24 Wash. 104, 114, 63 Pac. 1095 (1901). "Methow Cattle Co. v. Williams, 64 Wash. 457, 460, 117 Pac. 239 (1911). ssFudickar v. East Riverside In. Dist., 109 Cal. 29, 36-37, 41 Pac. 1024 (1895). 56Stanislaus Water Co. v. Bachman, 152 Cal. 716, 725-726, 93 Pac. 858 (1908). |