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Last modified
5/14/2010 8:58:17 AM
Creation date
9/30/2006 10:18:55 PM
Metadata
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Publications
Year
1995
Title
Califormia Water
CWCB Section
Interstate & Federal
Author
Arthur L. Littlewort
Description
History, overview, and explanation of water rights and legislation of California
Publications - Doc Type
Historical
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<br /> <br />The Audubon case expanded the appli. <br />cation of the public trust to include non~ <br />navigable tributaries to a navigable body <br />of water. <br /> <br />82 CALIFORNIA WATER <br /> <br />Gold Run Ditch, page 151. When the injunction was issued, hydraulic <br />mining was producing $10 million worth of gold per yearll The de- <br />cision, relying on the public trust doctrine, marked California's <br />transition from a mining economy to a commercial and agricultural <br />economy (33 Cal.3d, page 436)- <br /> <br />As we have already said, the rights of the people in the navigable <br />rivers of the State are paramount and controlling. The State holds <br />the absolute right to all navigable waters and the soils under them, <br />subject, of course, to aoy rights in them which may have been sur- <br />rendered to the general Government. (Citation omitted.) The soil <br />she holds as trustee of a public trust for the benefit of the people; <br />aod she may, by her legislature, grant it to an individual; but she <br />cannot grant the rights of the people to the use of the navigable wa- <br />ters flowing over it; these are inalienable. Aoy grant of the soil, <br />therefore, would be subject to the paramount rights of the people <br />to the use of the highway. And such was the doctrine of the <br />common law. 'The jus privatum,' says Lord Hale, in De Jure Maris, <br />p. 22, 'must not prejudice the jus publicum, wherewith public rivers <br />and arms of the sea are affected to public use,' It is, therefore, <br />beyond the power of legislatures to destroy or abridge such rights, <br />or to authorize their impairment. Gold Run Ditch, pages 151-152. <br /> <br />The Gold Run Ditch opinion took on added significance when <br />the court in National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, (1983) 33 <br />Cal.3d 419, relied on it to expand the application of the public <br />trust doctrine to non-navigable streams. Although the Gold Run <br />Ditch case did not involve the diversion of water, the court inter- <br />preted its principles to apply to a situation in which diversion from <br />a non-navigable tributary impairs the trust values of a downstream <br />river or lake. The court stated that, if it applied to fills which im- <br />paired trust values (as was the case in Gold Run Ditch), the public <br />trust doctrine also applied to extractions of waters that impair trust <br />values. Audubon, page 436. <br />In Marks v. Whitney, (1971) 6 Ca1.3d 251, the California Supreme <br />Court expanded the public trust beyond the three traditional uses of <br />navigation, commerce, and fisheries. Marks was a "qniet title" ac- <br />tion involving a boundary dispute. The defendant was an owner of <br />tidelands and sought to fill and develop them. Plaintiff argued that <br />this development would cut off his right, as a member of the public, <br /> <br />11 Dunning, "The Significance of California's Public Trust Easement for <br />California's Water Rights Law," page 367. <br />
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