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Show SOME GENERAL PROCEDURAL MATTERS IN WATER RIGHTS LITIGATION 517 The trial court apparently took the view that none of them could be enforced by it unless the interested parties both agreed thereto. That is not the law. Since the adoption of the 1928 constitutional amendment, it is not only within the power but it is also the duty of the trial court to admit evidence relating to possible physical solutions, and if none is satisfactory to it to suggest on its own motion such physical solution. * * * The court possesses the power to enforce such solution regardless of whether the parties agree. The principle was implemented in this case by providing that the district had the duty of maintaining the levels of plaintiffs wells above the danger level fixed by the trial court; that in the event that the levels of the wells reached the danger point, it was the district's duty either to supply water to the city or to raise the levels of the wells above the danger mark; and that in the event of noncompliance with the order within a reasonable time, injunctive decree should go into effect. In another decision the trial court's duty was thus restated:411 With the small quantity of water available in this stream in the summer months, the trial court should thoroughly investigate the possibility of some such physical solution, before granting an injunction that may be ruinous to either or both parties. It must be remembered that in this type of case the trial court is sitting as a court of equity, and as such, possesses broad powers to see that justice is done in the case. The state has a definite interest in seeing that none of the available waters of any of the streams of the state should go to waste. Each case must turn on its own facts, and the power of the court extends to working out a fair and just solution, if one can be worked out, of those facts. Furthermore, under the State water policy commanded by the constitu- tional amendment of 1928, means of protecting water supplies of riparian lands from pollution resulting from upstream storage by appropriators should be applied by the trial court, if practicable, without absolutely prohibiting the diversions and rendering the storage project useless.412 A federal court cautioned that the constitutional amendment does not permit an appropriator to disregard the rights of riparian owners and others who may have prior or paramount rights to the use of all waters of a stream which they can put to reasonable beneficial use under reasonable methods of 411 Rancho Santa Margarita v. Vail, 11 Cal. (2d) 501, 560-561, 81 Pac. (2d) 533 (1938). ""Meridian v. San Francisco, 13 Cal. (2d) 424, 451-452, 90 Pac. (2d) 537 (1939). The pollution, which resulted from operations of irrigation districts located above the riparian lands and below the increased storage diversions of the City of San Francisco, was not yet enough to render the water unfit for irrigation at the riparian lands. The supreme court held that if the storage diversions should so deplete the flow as to result in making the water unfit for irrigation at the riparian lands, the trial court had power by proper order to require the city to release enough water when necessary to freshen the flow, without rendering useless the city's increased storage facilities. |