1. Louie Brown Kahn, soares & conway, llp
Water Rights 101
Louie Brown
Kahn, soares & conway, llp

2. Basic Water Rights Riparian – land with water
Prior appropriation – First in time; First in Right

3. Riparian English Common Law
Appurtenant to Land – the Right to divert water from a water body adjoining land for use on the adjoining land.
Part of the bundle of rights that runs with the land. If land is severed from the water body, the riparian right may be lost unless preserved by title.
Reasonable use
Not lost through non-use

4. Prior Appropriation Western law
Perfection of right through posting a notice at place of diversion
Priority based upon first in time; first in right
May be forfeited
May require a State Permit

5. 1914
Pre-
Appropriative right that pre-dates the State Water Resource Control Board’s authority to regulate the State’s water supply
Post –
State develops a process for recognizing appropriative water right.
Permits issued which include
Point of diversion
Time period when diversion can take place
Quantity of water that can be diverted
Intended place of use
Intended purpose of use

6. Top 20 water rights holders in CA
Government holds 10 of top 20 with US Bureau of land management holding more rights than all other entities combined.
Sierra Pacific Industries
City of LA Dept of Water & Power
PG&E
Diamond Lands Corporation

7. Contracts Not a water right
Contract between the water right holder and another entity that will take the delivery of water diverted by means of the water right
Exchange
CVP
Settlement
CVP

8. Groundwater Overlying Pumper Non-overlying Pumper Prescriptive rights
Analogous to riparian rights in a stream
Correlative
Non-overlying Pumper
Analogous to appropriative rights
First in time; first in right
Prescriptive rights
Adverse possession – 5 year prescriptive period
Prescriptive right cannot be obtained against public agency
Federal reserved rights
Armed Forces bases
Native American tribal lands

9. Curtailment Orders
2015 – first time since the drought, the SWRCB issued curtailment orders for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River and Delta watershed and the Scott, Russian, and Eel watersheds, and for several other river systems.
Orders directed junior appropriators, post 1914 appropriators to immediately cease diverting water.
Pre-1914 curtailment notices also sent to Sacramento, Feather River and Delta watersheds

10. Questions