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Show CALIFORNIA 151 In addition to the reasonable use and reasonable means of diver- sion limitations, courts will enjoin withdrawals to prevent harmful lowering of the water table.215 All withdrawals over the natural recharge rate of the aquifer will be harmful to the resource in the long run unless it is replenished from other sources. Thus, any such withdrawals are intrusions upon the rights of overlying owners, and the courts have held them to ripen into prescriptive rights if continued for the requisite period of time,216 even though there is no present damage to water uses. The overdraft is mutually pre- scriptive to all overlying rights.217 This is the only way in which rights to percolating waters may be lost. b. ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT OF UNDERGROUND WATERS Especially in water-poor Southern California, underground basins have been a relatively low-cost supply of water. As demand and use have grown, however, the basins have been threatened with irre- parable damage from salt water intrusion and exhaustion. In efforts to curtail resource depletion and to balance short- and long-term interests, underground water basin management programs have been created.218 They recognize the interrelationship between surface and underground water and seek to conserve underground resources through replenishment, water importation, and controlled use. Basin management has necessarily been on a local basis, but espe- cially in recent years, the State has increased its participation through legislation directing action by the Department of Water Resources and the State water resources control board. Originally, however, impetus for basin management was provided by the courts notably in the flexible approach taken in Pasadena v. Alhambra?19 which established the doctrine of mutual prescription and began the trend away from strict adherence to vested right analysis which had led to harmful uses of the underground resource. Courts encouraged mutual agreements and stipulated judgments where all basin users agreed upon controls to preserve the basin while still maximizing use. Following the Pasadena case and others in its mold, the legisla- ture enacted several laws facilitating basin management by private users and establishing a State policy of resource conservation and basin replenishment. In 1951, provisions were added to the water code recognizing replenishment as a beneficial reasonable use 220 and protecting withdrawal rights temporarily being substituted for by the use of imported water.221 The water resources control board was given the authority to enjoin harmful pumping which allowed salt water intrusion in basins which were the subjects of adjudications referred to the board from the courts.222 The board was also given «« Burr v. Maolay Rancho Water Co., 154 C. 428, 438, 98 P. 220 (1908). 218 See sec. 3.4, supra. 217 Pasadena v. Alhamhra, supra, note 7, p. 30, at 927. See 51 Cal. Jur. 2d 878-879, waters sec. 408. 218 See generally, Krleger and Banks, "Ground Water Basin Management," 50 Cal. L. Rev. 56 (1962). 218 Supra, note 7,p. 30. awW.C., sec. 1005.2. »W.C, sec. 1005.1. 222 W.C., sec. 2020. See sec. 2.2.2 (b), supra. |
