Waters of Long Valley Creek Stream System, In re

• Decision Date: 14 September 1979
• Citation: 158 Cal.Rptr. 350,599 P.2d 656,25 Cal.3d 339
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 599 P.2d 656 23 Cal.3d 339 In re Determination of Rights to WATERS OF LONG VALLEY CREEK STREAM SYSTEM. Eugene A. ROWLAND et al., Petitioners and Respondents, v. Donald E. RAMELLI, Claimant and Appellant, State Water Resources Control Board, Respondent. S. F. 23932.

Page 350

158 Cal.Rptr. 350

25 Cal.3d 339, 599 P.2d 656

23 Cal.3d 339 In re Determination of Rights to WATERS OF LONG VALLEY CREEK STREAM SYSTEM.

Eugene A. ROWLAND et al., Petitioners and Respondents, v. Donald E. RAMELLI, Claimant and Appellant, State Water Resources Control Board, Respondent.

S. F. 23932.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Sept. 14, 1979.

Hearing Denied Oct. 25, 1979.

Adolph Moskovitz, Stephen A. Kronick and Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard, Sacramento, for claimant and appellant.

No appearance for petitioners and respondents.

Evelle J. Younger and George Deukmejian, Attys. Gen., R. H. Connett, Asst. Atty. Gen., Roderick Walston and Richard C. Jacobs, Deputy Attys. Gen. for respondent.

Porter A. Towner, Russell R. Kletzing, Sacramento, and David B. Anderson, Los Gatos, as amici curiae on behalf of respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

The significant problem in this case is the extent to which the State Water Resources Control Board (Board) has the power to define and otherwise limit prospective riparian rights when, pursuant to the statutory adjudication procedure set forth in Water Code section 2500 et seq., it determines all claimed rights to the use of water in a stream system. We conclude that the Legislature, in order to foster more reasonable and beneficial uses of state waters, has granted the Board broad authority to ascertain the nature of future riparian rights in this adjudication procedure. In delimiting the scope of this authority, however, we are guided by prudential considerations to apply the presumption that the Legislature does not intend a statute to raise substantial constitutional questions that may result in total or partial invalidation of the enactment, unless a contrary intention is clearly expressed. This case presents such a constitutional issue with respect to the Board's determination to extinguish a riparian landowner's future right to the use of water.

In Tulare Dist. v. Lindsay-Strathmore Dist. (1935) 3 Cal.2d 489, 45 P.2d 972, we held that section 11 of the Water Commission Act violated article X, section 2, of the California Constitution; section 11 deemed riparian rights remaining unused for 10 consecutive years to be abandoned and thereby provided for their complete extinction. The serious constitutional question raised by the Tulare holding is whether the Legislature may authorize the Board to extinguish altogether future riparian rights absent a showing that less drastic limitations on those rights are insufficient to promote the most reasonable and beneficial uses of state waters. Thus, although the Board has broad authority to define and otherwise limit future riparian rights, we conclude the Legislature did not intend to authorize the complete extinction of any future riparian rights in circumstances in which the Board has failed to establish that the most reasonable and beneficial use of water subject to the adjudication proceeding could not be promoted as effectively by placing other less severe restrictions on such rights.

The action arises out of a statutory proceeding to adjudicate the rights of all claimants to the waters of the Long Valley Creek Stream System (stream system) in Lassen, Sierra and Plumas Counties. The stream system, which contains a 465-square-mile watershed, lies astride the California-Nevada border starting at its uppermost extremity about 8 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada, and extending northwesterly about 45 miles in length to the east end of Honey Lake near Herlong, California. Long Valley Creek and its main tributaries, Purdy Creek and Balls Creek, originate in the melting snow of the Sierra Nevada near Babbit Peak. From there they flow into a semi-arid and desert portion of California. In most years, there is a surplus of water early in the spring, with the flow receding rapidly when the snow has melted; this may occur as early as April or as late as June. After the snowmelt runoff is depleted, there is only enough water to irrigate a small portion of the total irrigable land.

Because of the limited water supply, there has been prolific litigation among the various water claimants in the area since at least 1883. In the interest of resolving the conflicts that have fostered such litigation, nine claimants filed a petition in 1966 with the Board for statutory adjudication of all water rights in the stream system. (Wat.Code, § 2525.) The staff of the Board conducted a preliminary investigation and recommended in favor of the petition, which the Board subsequently granted. Thereafter the Board prepared and published a notice of the proceedings (Id., §§ 2526, 2527), and all persons claiming a right to the waters of the stream system notified the Board of their intention to file a claim. (Id., § 2528.) As required by Water Code section 2550, the Board then conducted an extensive investigation; it published a report containing the results of this investigation for the principal purpose of assisting water users in filing their claims of right.

After filing its report, the Board advised persons who notified it of their intention to file a claim thaat the claim and proof in support of it must be formally presented. ¹ It heard 234 claims and proofs, and 42 contests thereto, concerning the rights of the stream system. After consideration of these claims, proofs and contests, it "entered of record in its office an order determining and establishing the several rights to the water of the stream system." (Id., § 2700.)

Donald Ramelli (Ramelli), as a party aggrieved or dissatisfied with the order of determination, filed a notice of exceptions in the superior court pursuant to Water Code section 2757. Ramelli owns land upon which Balls Creek originates. For the past approximately 60 years he and his predecessors have irrigated 89 acres of this land, but before the Board he claimed prospective riparian rights in the creek for an additional 2,884 acres. The order of determination nevertheless awarded him various amounts of water for only the 89 acres as to which he was currently exercising his riparian rights; it extinguished entirely his claim as a riparian landowner to the future use of water with respect to the remaining 2,884 acres. ²

The trial court denied Ramelli's exceptions and entered a decree consistent with the Board's order of determination. Ramelli appealed from the decree, and we reverse.

I

Ramelli's principal contention is that the trial court erroneously failed to recognize his riparian right to prospective use of the stream system. In support of this contention, he initially insists that California judicial decisions have without question recognized such a right.

It is true that a substantial body of case law concerning a riparian's prospective rights have developed in this state as a result of private lawsuits between various water rights claimants. Thus, for example, this court has recognized that (1) the rights of a riparian owner are not destroyed or impaired by the fact that he has not yet used the water upon his riparian lands, and therefore that the riparian right exists, whether exercised or not (Lux v. Haggin (1886) 69 Cal. 255, 390-391, 4 P. 919; Half Moon Bay Land Co. v. Cowell (1916) 173 Cal. 543, 551, 160 P. 675; Parker v. Swett (1922) 188 Cal. 474, 480, 205 P. 1065; Meridian, Ltd. v. San Francisco (1939) 13 Cal.2d 424, 445, 90 P.2d 537); (2) a dormant riparian right is paramount to active appropriate rights (Peabody v. City of Vallejo (1935) 2 Cal.2d 351, 374-375, 40 P.2d 486); and (3) in resolving a dispute between a riparian who claims a prospective water right and other claimants, it may be proper for the trial court to retain jurisdiction over the matter so that the riparian's prospective right can be quantified at the time he decides to exercise it (Tulare Dist. v. Lindsay-Strathmore Dist. (1935) supra, 3 Cal.2d 489, 525, 45 P.2d 972; Meridian, Ltd. v. San Francisco (1939) supra, 13 Cal.2d 424, 452, 90 P.2d 537; Williams v. Rankin (1966) 245 Cal.App.2d 803, 819, 54 Cal.Rptr. 184; Tehachapi-Cummings County Water Dist. v. Armstrong (1975) 49 Cal.App.3d 992, 998, 122 Cal.Rptr. 918).

Such principles, however, are limited in their application to a context in which water rights are determined through piecemeal adjudication that will settle disputes among only a small number of those persons who claim a right to the use of water in a stream system. The judgment in this type of adjudication necessarily can bind only those who are parties to the litigation; it may subsequently be nullified by the assertion of a legitimate claim by a water user on the stream who was not a party to the suit. The most that a trial court can do in such a case, therefore, is to retain jurisdiction over prospective riparian claims.

This court has never declared that the foregoing approach is to be preferred over a statutory procedure for the comprehensive determination of All rights to the use of water in a stream system; rather, we have recognized that there is a limitation inherent in the ability of private lawsuits to provide clarity, certainty, and security to water rights and water users. Thus, in Meridian, Ltd. v. San Francisco, supra, 13 Cal.2d at p. 457, 90 P.2d at p. 553, we stated that "This method of resolving controversies involving the rights of the users of water on the river is necessarily piecemeal, unduly expensive and obviously unsatisfactory." Our analysis of the nature of the prospective riparian right in this context therefore does not imply that the Legislature may not define or otherwise limit the scope of such a right, or delegate to the Board the authority to do so in a statutory adjudication proceeding. ³

Ramelli contends, however, that neither the legislatively established statutory adjudication procedure nor article X, section 2, of the California Constitution permits the Board to determine that a riparian's unquantified prospective claim may constitute an unreasonable use...