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I doubt that would stand up to the inevitable legal challenge.

Apparently, I forgot ......................it's for the Natives.

What I'm told is that they started south and are working north. They are working around Sacramento as of this spring. That said, they already tried to take my friend in Modoc's spring water for "stream flow rights" two years ago. They haven't come after his wells, yet.

Yeah, that spring flow thing is contentious, especially if the spring flow historically made it to the creek/river or other watercourse someone had "rights" to.

I think if I were to go to law school as a younger person now, water rights might be a profitable field to explore.

Just because the water lies under your property, does not mean you automatically own it.

Dutch here is an expert on this issue. as he uses lots of spring water for his operations, and has dealt with varying flow rates.

It has been in the news over the last few years, that the aquifer in the Magic Valley Idaho has been dropping, as large ag producers punch wells for irrigation. But the water rights to those wells are in many cases junior to the guys depending on spring flows where the aquifer resurfaces.

When the guy with senior water rights starts losing his flow. The guy with junior water rights loses his water first.

SE Oregon here and alfalfa growers are following water down on almost an annual basis. Don't buy a pivot without thoroughly checking the well's history. If agr. wants to put down a new well now, they have to plug an old one.

A few primo trout fishing holes have lost their historic spring inputs and dried up. Nearby 1/2 section pivots are likely the culprit.

Yep. The story of the west is all about water rights.

People should stop trying to settle out in the sticks. Gather up in cities.


Sheesh

Hold into the .gov pension

Take a look at their representatives.

That's your answer.

There is no place in Idaho where you can put in an ag or industrial well without buying someone else's water right, first. Water is, as we say, "fully allocated". Irrigation, industry, domestic, stream flow, hydro, native tribes, lots of different water rights.

The Idaho water doctrine is "first in right, first in time". The spring I operate on has one of the oldest rights in Idaho, 1864. No one can, in any way, diminish that spring. If someone in the watershed drills a well, and affects the spring flow, I can make a "call for water", and they will have to shut down. Period, end of story.

There is a stretch around the Twin Falls area that is called the "thousand springs reach", where the chasm created by the flood that drained the ice age inland sea cuts through the lava rock and intersects the Snake River Plain aquifer, and a million gallons of spring flow PER MINUTE comes out of the canyon walls. Trout farms filed for the spring flow rights, and had their operations for half a century and more. Then the droughts started, irrigation practices changed, and farmers up stream (way, way, WAY upstream -- as far as Mud Lake and the Idaho Falls / Blackfoot regions 160 miles away) started putting in BIG wells. Springs started dropping, slowly at first, then faster.

The spring flow was roughly cut in half from the 1967 peak by 2000, and the fish farmers made a call for water. Long story short, the irrigators ended up buying the fish farmer's water rights in a state brokered deal, for roughly $200K per CFS (cubic feet per second, about an acre foot per day). Now the fish farmers are renting back their water right and old facilities, but since they don't own the rights, they can no longer call on water.

The irrigators most certainly paid for water, and a HECK of a lot more than the proposal in Kali.

Interesting topic and some great information. 👍

Up until fairly recently, California groundwater laws have been somewhat archaic and loose. This is mostly because for the last 60-80 years the state’s surface water projects have met a huge part of the demand and groundwater demand hadn’t outstripped its capacity.

Well now things are changing. Not enough new projects to meet the increased demand(environmental, ag, and urban). Not to mention environmentalists are working on taking dams out. Not everywhere in the state is groundwater an issue, but once something gets on the state’s radar it becomes a problem for everyone.

I think there are western states that have some pretty structured water laws because they have needed something in place because of the groundwater demand. If I were to guess, CA could probably adopt some of these and fix what ails it, but instead they’ll reinvent the wheel and fark it all up.

Commiefornia, everything is allowed.

We voted him out and the Voter Fraud flipped for him
You really think there are going to be Honest elections in this entire Country until people Lots of people go to prison over this issue.

Here in Podunk

we are allotted 10K gallons per month of city culanary water.......$18/month

I use 3-4K gallons of the allotted 10K

Outside irrigation water is different

When are Californians going to have enough of this crap and start rising up and just throwing these people out of office... via the 5th floor window, head first??