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Show 50 THE RIPARIAN DOCTRINE California case in which it was held that the bed of the Ventura River was bounded by its permanent and fast banks, the question was whether certain lands lying between some lower banks and the high banks of the river were riparian to the river; and the supreme court held that they were.255 Five years later, in explaining certain language used in the opinion in this case, the supreme court cautioned that the character of the bottomland soil had nothing to do with the right of the owner, as a riparian proprietor, to use the stream water for any useful purpose. With respect to the landowner's right to make reasonable use of the water, the court was of the opinion that bottomlands riparian to a stream, even though lying between high bluffs on each side, are not to be distinguished from other land abutting on the stream.256 Lands thus meeting the riparian requirement of contiguity by being outside the high banks of a stream, but nonetheless bordering it, may be so high above the stream level as to require pumping the water to the irrigated lands. This necessity does not deprive the land of its riparian character. Whatever quantity of water the riparian proprietor is entitled to divert by virtue of his riparian ownership "cannot be diminished by the fact that in order to utilize it he must raise it from the bed of the stream by pumps, or other similar appliances."257 Acquisition by riparian of noncontiguous land.-A number of court decisions have dealt with the question as to whether a riparian owner who acquires a tract adjoining his own, but which is not contiguous to the water source, can thereby clothe this noncontiguous parcel with riparian status. In an early case, the California Supreme Court held that mere contiguity of tracts to each other, even though granted to the same person on the same day but by separate patents, could not extend the riparian right inherent in one contiguous parcel to another not touching the stream.258 Some other courts have approved or declared elements of this principle.259 The Oregon Supreme Court, however, adhered to a different view in a 1909 case. The court's view was that the owner of land contiguous to a stream is entitled to the rights of a riparian proprietor without regard to the actual extent of his land, or from whom or when he acquired title.260 255 Ventura Land & Power Co. v. Meiners, 136 Cal. 284, 290-291, 68 Pac. 818 (1902). 256Anaheim Union Water Co. v. Fuller, 150 Cal. 327, 328-329, 88 Pac. 978 (1907). 251'Charnock v. Higuerra, 111 Cal. 473,477-481, 44 Pac. 171 (1896). 2StBoehmer v. Big Rock Irr. Dist., 117 Cal. 19, 26-27,48 Pac. 908 (1897); accord,Miller & Lux v.James, 180 Cal. 38, 51,179 Pac. 174(1919). 259 Watkins Land Co. v. Clements, 98 Tex. 578, 585, 589, 86 S.W. 733 (1905); Yearsley v. Cater, 149 Wash. 285, 287-289, 270 Pac. 804 (1928). 260Jones v. Conn, 39 Oreg. 30, 39-41, 64 Pac. 855, 65 Pac. 1068 (1901). One riparian proprietor in this controversy made a ditch to tap the river some distance from his property with which to irrigate a tract separated from the river by a bluff. It was the court's view that the fact that the landowner purchased the particular riparian tract at one time, and the adjoining tract subsequently, would not make him any less a riparian proprietor, nor should it alone be a valid objection to his using the water on the land last acquired. The court said the only thing necessary to entitle him to the right of a |