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Show 670 SOUTH CAROLINA writer49 deplores the effect of this limitation on more beneficial uses of water but assumes that this is probably the law in South Carolina. He points out that there are, nevertheless, a number of South Caro- lina statutes authorizing specified cities to take water from streams for municipal use far removed from the point of diversion. Most of these special acts do not, however, purport to interfere with riparian rights of lower owners on the streams. Apparently, riparian owners have not complained about these uses for municipal purposes. 3.3 Changes, Sales, and Transfers There are no cases dealing with sale and transfer of reparian rights. Permits to divert ground water are transferrable with the consent of the water commission, as discussed in section 4, infra. The watershed limitation (preventing transbasin transfers) was discussed in the next preceding section. 3.4 Loss of Bights A right to make an unreasonable use of water by a riparian owner may be acquired by prescription.50 To that extent, riparian privileges of others are affected. Riparian rights in South Carolina are not otherwise lost or forfeited by nonuse of the water. 3.5 Storage Waters, Artificial Lakes, and Ponds There is no statutory scheme for the regulation of the construction of dams or reservoirs in South Carolina, but there are statutes which prohibit the obstruction of navigable watercourses, except for specific exemptions.51 There are also statutes which make it unlawful to con- struct or maintain a dam which will stop the course of any waters and cause them to overflow the lands of another (without securing permission of the person flooded), or to release stored waters in a manner that may damage the lands of another person.52 A recent Federal case in South Carolina held that the owner and operator of a dam has a duty to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance and operation of a dam, and will be liable if he violates that duty and releases waters to the injury of lower riparians,53 but will not be liable for damage resulting from causes which could not be anticipated or guarded against, such as floods from extraordinary storms. 3.6 Springs There do not appear to be any cases or statutory provisions in South Carolina dealing with springs. From the rules relating to surface watercourses and ground water, it would seem that any spring waters which are tributary to a surface watercourse, which leaves the lands upon which the springs originate, would be governed by the riparian doctrine of reasonable use as applied to surface water- courses; but that if the spring waters do not leave the lands upon which they originate, the landowner may capture and use the waters. 49 C. Hill, Limitation on Diversions From the Watershed: Riparian Roadblock to Bene- ficial Use, 23 S.C. L,. Rev. 43 (1971). 50 Jordan v. Lang, 22 S.C. 159 (1885). <*Secs. 70-1 to 6. MSec. 18-5. 63 Key Sales Go. v. South Carolina Eleo. & Gas Co., 290 F. Supp. 8 (1968). |