| OCR Text |
Show 148 CALIFORNIA e. CONDEMNATION Water rights may be lost by the holder where governmental agen- cies have used their eminent domain powers to condemn the water rights. Such cases include condemnation for present use or future development for county, municipal, and municipal water district systems,183 and for the Central Valley project.184 3.5 Storage Waters, Artificial Lakes, and Ponds California courts recognize the right to store waters for certain purposes. In a leading case following the 1928 amendment, the State Supreme Court held that storage for flood control, equalization and stabilization of flow, and future uses are beneficial uses for appro- priated water, but that the right of storage is subordinate to bene- ficial uses of prior or superior rights.185 A distinction is made between temporary and seasonal storage. A right may be acquired to store water as a means of providing water for a riparian or appropriative right; but seasonal storage, as a means of saving water for use in the dry season, is not recognized as a right itself.188 Such use would clearly be unreasonable unless the water was surplus and not necessary to satisfy other rights on the watercourse. The legislature has expressly recognized the right to store waters as a means of developing water, as a right of irrigation districts, and for holdover supplies for municipal systems.187 3.6 Springs a. defined A spring is water rising to the earth from below and either flowing away in small streams or standing as a small lake or pond.188 b. RIGHT TO USE Prior to the adoption of the correlative use rule in 1903,189 Cali- fornia courts applied the common law rule which permitted owners of land overlying percolating waters to intercept them without re- gard to neighbors' springs.190 Now the correlative use doctrine applies to overlying owners and parties having rights to spring water.191 The correlative use doctrine gives all overlying owners rights in common to percolating waters. Each may take water to meet his needs if the supply is sufficient for all. If it is not, each owner is limited to reasonable beneficial use.192 183 See code civil process sees. 1238(3)-(5) and (11)-(13). ^W.C, sec. 11580. ^Peabody v. Vallejo, 2 C. 2d 351, 366, 40 P. 2d 486 (1935). u* Miller & Lux Inc. v. San Joaquin Power & Light Co., 8 C. 2d 427, 65 P. 2d 1289 (1937) ; Colo. Power Co. v. Pao. Gas & Eleo. Co., 218 C. 559, 564-566, 24 P. 2d 495 (1933). iw gee 51 Cal. Jur. 2d 815-817, waters sec. 349. **»DeWolfskill v. Smith, 5 Cal. app. 175, 89 P. 1001 (1907). ™*Katz v. Wilkinshaw, 141 C. 116, 134, 70 P. 663, 74 P. 766 (1903). See sec. 4, ground water, Infra. ™>8o. Pao. R.B. Co. V. Dufour, 95 C. 615, 30 P. 783 (1892). 191 Cohen v. La Canada Land and Water Co., 142 C. 437, 76 P. 47 (1904). 1MPasadena v. Alhambra, 33 C. 2d 908, 926, 207 P. 2d 17 (1949), cert den 339 U.S. 397 (1950). See 51 Cal. Jur. 2d 867, Waters sec. 397 and sec. 4, infra. |
