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Show CALIFORNIA 675 that the owner of private land has title to the water in his land.s9 However, it was ownership of rights to the use of the percolating waters, rather than ownership of the corpus of the water, with which the court was really concerned. It is doubtful that anything said by the court in that decision had any effect on the prevailing concept of the principle of common ownership of percolating waters as opposed to individual private ownership. The analogy between the correlative and riparian doctrines, close as it is in most essential respects, is not quite complete. Because of the hydrologic differences between flowing streams and percolating ground waters, the concept of upper and lower uses of stream waters is not, in the usual case, pragmatically applicable to percolating ground waters. The analogy between the two doctrines, noted above, is closer now than it was prior to the formulation of the State water policy associated with and commanded by the constitutional amendment of 1928.60 Before that time, the riparian owner was not held to a reasonable use of the water as against an appropriator. But as a result of the amendment, the rule of reasonable beneficial use applies equally to overlying and riparian uses of water.61 Adjustment of rights in Pasadena v. Alhambra.-This prominent and outstandingly important percolating water case62 involved the waters of a ground water area,63 which had been overdrawn for many years. In fact, the overdraft upon the ground water supply first occurred in 1913-1914. From then until suit was first brought in 1937, withdrawals from the basin exceeded the safe yield in all except 2 years. Despite this, the parties continued their pumping, the effect of which was to continue the overdraft and lowering of the water table. Hence there was an invasion of the rights of both overlying owners and appropriators; but it was only a partial one because it did not completely oust the original owners of their water rights. Pumpage by each group actually interfered with the other group in producing an overdraft and thereby making it impossible for all to continue at the same rate in the future. The California Supreme Court held that the appropriations that caused the overdraft were invasions of the rights of overlying owners and prior appropriators, and that prescriptive rights were thereby established to whatever 59San Bernardino v. Riverside, 186 Cal. 7, 25, 198 Pac. 784 (1921). 60Cal. Const, art. XIV, § 3. "Peabody v. Vallejo, 2 Cal. (2d) 351, 372, 40 Pac. (2d) 486 (1935). See "Effect of Constitutional Amendment of 1928," infra. 62Pasadena v. Alhambra,33 Cal. (2d) 908, 207 Pac. (2d) 17 (1949), certiorari denied, 339 U.S. 937 (1950). This case was followed in 1964 by a decision in which a district court of appeal reviewed the principles established in this case and considered the current contentions in the light of the rules regarding ground water rights laid down therein. California Water Serv. Co. v. Edward Sidebotham & Son, Inc., 202 Cal. App. (2d) 256, 37 Cal. Rptr. 1 (1964). "See 33 Cal. (2d) at 921 for a description of the basin. |
