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()--',. f III lJ ,,: ',' - 2 - 32. In many respects, using land according to its capabilities and treating it according to its needs is the first pre-requisite to a sound water policy. In this res peet Colorado and Toexas have much in common. ., Ground water areas in California are subject mainly to the corre- lative rights (court) rules and to the court references--adjudication process. In this, mutual prescription is recognized when use exceeds replenishment for the statutory period. ln other words, this policy calls initially for a sharing of the common supply but ultimately for Ii rationing of use to the sustained yield of each defined basin when use exceeds replenishment, based upon the recorded history of past use and current supply. The State Water Department serves as fact-finding agency for the courts and its findings are treated as prima facie evidence of the truth therein contained, but experts representing the parties sit in on the fact studie s so as to reduce litigation time and cost. :./ This method is very slow and costly but has important advantages in terms of providing for cOnse rvation and continued use of the resource, including the space which it occupies in anticipation of artificial replen- ishment under the California Water .Jlan. Our main and most effic ient natural reservoir capacity in California lies underground. . The people of California have progressed from the more conservative common law rules to the somewhat more progressive correlative rights rules. But they have not gone as far as Utah and adopted statutory appro- priation for ground waters after adopting correlative rights. They are almost that far, and eventually will be forced by necessity to do so because mutual prescription is only a judicial stopgap. And court administration has not been shown to be efficient in the long run in critical areas. The California geology is different from that of the Toexas High Plains, and there is both existing natural replenishment and feasible artificial replenishment possibilities. The Colorado situation has similar- ities to both those of Texas and California, but it also has dissim ilarities. It is usually the differences which are most important in developing rules of fairness in management of water. In addition to the foregoing, the California Recordation Act for certain southern California counties is adevice with practical possibilities for recognizing past uses as an initial step in the long-time management .' " 2/ Katz v. Walkinshaw, 14l Calif. 116, 70 Pac. 663 (1902); 74 Pac. 766 (1903); Pasadena v. Alhambra, 33 Cal. 2d 908, 207 P. 2d 27 (1949); Cal. Water Code Ann. Sl242 (1954).