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Show 146 THE PUEBLO WATER RIGHT existed in Spain, waters were held by pueblos as a common property for domestic use, irrigation, and other purposes under regulations administered by the town officials.3 In the Spanish settlement of California, this practice was followed in the early agricultural pueblos of San Jose and Los Angeles, at each of which irrigation was an all-important consideration;4 and the public acequias (ditches) were managed as such by the pueblo authorities throughout the Spanish and Mexican rule.5 American Municipal Succession In the year of attainment of statehood, the California Legislature passed acts incorporating the cities of San Jose and Los Angeles. By appropriate legislation in this and ensuing years, both of these American municipalities were confirmed in their rights and responsibilities as successors of the pueblos.6 Whatever water rights San Jose may have possessed were not adjudicated. On the other hand, the pueblo water rights of the City of Los Angeles, which succeeded the Spanish-Mexican pueblo, and of the City of San Diego as successor to a pueblo established under Mexican rule, have been adjudicated in a series of cases.7 The United States Supreme Court held that the nature and extent of water rights claimed as incident to grants of land by the Spanish and Mexican Governments within California, including the pueblo grants, are not Federal questions, but are questions of State law and general public law on 3Hall, W. H., "Irrigation Development," p. 370 (1886). 4 Bancroft, H. H., "History of California," vol. 1, p. 345 (1884). sHutchins, supra note 2, at 282-284. 'San Jose: Cal. Stat. 1850, ch. 47 (act to incorporate the city, March 27,1850); Cal. Stat. 1857, ch. 107 (act to reincorporate the city, March 27, 1857, giving the Board of Trustees authority "to construct wells and cisterns; organize and maintain fire departments, and supply the city with water," but omitting reference to irrigation). Los Angeles: Cal. Stat. 1850, ch. 60 (act to incorporate the city, April 4, 1850); Cal. Stat. 1851, ch. 78 (supplementary act, April 5, 1851); Cal. Stat. 1854, ch. 65, April 13, 1854 (Kerr ed.), Special Acts ch. 95 (Redding ed.) (construing 1850 statute as vesting in the mayor and common council control over the distribution of water for irrigation within the limits of the ancient pueblo); Cal. Stat. 1874, ch. 447 (amending charter to provide, among other things, that the city is granted "in absolute ownership, the full, free, and exclusive right to all of the water" of the Los Angeles River from its source to the southern boundary of the city, together with the right to develop and use all waters in the bed of the river beneath the surface); Cal. Stat. 1876, ch. 476 (amending the 1874 statute). This exclusive legislative grant of all water was not taken seriously by the California Supreme Court, which could not see that the city had acquired any new rights by reason of the legislative acts and stated that "It will hardly be claimed that the legislature could grant to the city the water of the river so as to deprive riparian owners of it." Vernon Irr. Co. v. Los Angeles, 106 Cal. 237,253, 39 Pac. 762 (1895). 7 See "Extent of the Pueblo Water Right-Adjudication of Pueblo Water Rights of Los Angeles and San Diego," infra. |