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Show Parti Chapter 1. DEVELOPMENT OF STATE WATER LAW: AN OVERVIEW 1.1 Introduction The development of water law in the United States is an interest- ing chapter of legal history. Legal doctrines relating to ownership and use of water changed as it became increasingly evident that there is a vital public interest in the conservation and use of this resource, and as science and technology have afforded a clearer understanding of the nature and behavior of water, particularly in its subterranean movement. Water is a renewable natural resource because nature furnishes a new supply each year in the form of precipitation. Some natural resources are said to be nonrenewable, such as metallic minerals and hydrocarbons, which are of limited supply and are not renewed by nature within any time span meaningful to mankind. But this does not mean that all of our water resources are totally replaced with a fresh supply each year, because watercourses-particularly lakes and aquifers-may accumulate pollutants discharged into them, and they cannot be cleansed within any short time period. Serious pollution can render water unfit for many valuable uses which it otherwise could serve, and might cause an early death to lakes through eu- trophication, which occurs when phosphates and other contaminants accelerate the growth of algae and other plant life which consumes the available oxygen in the water, destroying the utility of the lake for aquatic life. Deterioration in quality of underground aquifers, either through the discharge or seepage of pollutants into the under- ground or by salt water intrusion, is a matter of equally serious concern. The amount of water consumed by the nation in each year is not equal to the annual supply furnished by nature. Some water is not used at all, except to carry salts and waste to sea or to contribute to the ability of the waterway to sustain navigation and fishlife. Other water is used a number of times in sequence, and the discharge by one user is the source of supply for the next user. Water is with- drawn from some underground basins in amounts greatly in excess of the annual recharge, so that the basin supply is being depleted, or "mined." On some watersheds in water-short areas, efforts are made to augment normal precipitation through weather modification or "cloud seeding" programs, thus drawing more moisture from the atmosphere. However, the water supply available to the American people prob- ably is sufficient to meet foreseeable future demands, although there |
