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Show SPRING WATERS 603 such upstream lands on which tributary springs are located passes to private ownership, the grantees acquire riparian rights in the springs that are superior to appropriative rights in the watercourse that have already accrued on downstream private lands as well as rights that may accrue subsequently.190 Sources of spring water. -The fact that springs have their sources in ground water affects the rights of the claimant of spring water as against those who intercept the sources of supply. Waters of definite underground streams and percolating waters are distinguished in California water law. The former are subject to the law of watercourses, and the latter are now subject in California to legal principles similar in many respects to those of the law of watercourses. This phase of the subject involves principles of ground water rights, which will be dealt with in chapter 20. The owner of land on which a spring rises, as well as other claimants of rights in the spring, now have certain rights in the sources of supply of the spring, whether those sources consist entirely of percolating water, or consist partly or wholly of water flowing in a definite underground stream. The owner of land containing tributary percolating water is entitled only to a reasonable use of such water for the benefit and enjoyment of his land, such use being consistent with the rights of others in the percolating water and in the spring or stream to which it is naturally tributary. In California, "the term 'reasonable use' * * * does not mean that one of two or more persons having correlative rights in a common supply of water may take all that is reasonably beneficial to his land, regardless of the needs of the others, as the defendant contends, but only his reasonable share thereof, if there is not enough to supply the needs of all."191 Under present California law, all rights in a spring, its sources, and the watercourse of which it forms a part would be correlated under the rule of reasonable beneficial use. Colorado Section 148-2-3 of the Colorado statutes provides:192 The waters of natural flowing springs may be appropriated for all beneficial uses and the priorities of such appropriations may be determined as provided by law. If it shall be found that the water of any such springs is not tributary to any natural stream the determinations shall fix the rights of appropriators from such springs among themselves. 190Holmes v. Nay, 186 Cal. 231, 234-235,199 Pac. 325 (1921). 191 Eckel v. Springfield Tunnel & Dev. Co., 87 Cal. App. 617, 622, 624, 262 Pac. 425 (1927). 192Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 148-2-3 (1963), as reenacted and amended by Laws, 1969, ch. 373, § 3, Rev. Stat. Ann. § 148-2-3 (Supp. 1969). |