OCR Text |
Show Chapter 8. DELAWARE CONTENTS Page 1. Development of Delaware Water Law___________________________ 185 2. State Organizational Structure for Water Administration and Control-. 186 2.1 Administration of Water Rights________________________ 186 2.2 Resolution of Water Use Conflicts______________________ 194 2.3 Other Agencies Having Water Resource Responsibilities____ 194 3. Surface Waters______________________________________________ 195 3.1 Method of Acquiring Rights___________________________ 195 3.2 Nature and Limit of Rights_____________________.....__ 196 3.3 Changes, Sales, and Transfers__________________________ 196 3.4 Loss of Rights______________________________________ 197 3.5 Strong Waters, Artificial Lakes, and Ponds_______________ 198 3.6 Springs__________________________.....______________ 199 3.7 Diffused Surface Waters______________________________ 199 4. Ground Water_______________________________________________ 200 Publications Available__________________________________________ 201 DISCUSSION 1. Development of Delaware Water Law As a small eastern seaboard State with a humid climate and abun- dant water supply, Delaware must be classified as a riparian rights jurisdiction. The nature and extent of riparian rights in that State are very vague, however, because the courts have seldom been re- quired to define these rights. The cases do not define the extent to which rules of reasonable use modify the natural flow doctrine; any limits on use of diffused sur- face water; or rights of use in groundwater. It is likely, however, that the Delaware courts would apply the same reasonable use rules in surface watercourses as are commonly applied in other riparian jurisdiction states; would allow landowners to capture and use dif- fused surface water; and would apply rules of reasonable use to groundwater. The foregoing speculation is mooted to some extent by legislation which controls post-1966 water use, and which regulates well drillers. It should also be noted that Delaware is a member of the Delaware River Basin Compact, which is a Federal-Interstate Compact com- prised of the States within the basin and the United States. That compact is particularly significant from the standpoint of water de- velopment, regulation and use because it recognizes that "the Avater resources of the basin are functionally interrelated, and the uses of these resources are interdependent;" and it created the Delaware River Basin Commission as a "single administrative agency" to provide "effective and economical direction, supervision and coordi- nation of efforts and programs of Federal, State and local govern- ments and of private enterprise."x The Delaware compact thus 1Del. Code Ann., sec. 7-6501, art. 1.3(c) (pocket supp.). For convenience and simplicity, the Delaware code will be cited hereafter by section numbers only. 185 |