190 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



to provide an efficient administrative sj'stem, adequate for the proper distribution of 

 tiie water to those entitled to its use. 



For the defining of existing rights the machinery and methods of the ordinary 

 court are not fitted. With all the thirty j-ears of litigation over Cache Creek claims, 

 nothing has been accomplished except to render impossible the use of water. The 

 injunction works while the court sleeps. 



The tribunal that deals with this matter adequately and finally must take account 

 of phj'sical law:; as well us statute and precedent. It must have all the necessary' 

 appliances for securing, of its own motion if necessary, accurate and reliable knowl- 

 edge of the capacities of ditches, the uses made of the water, and all other physical 

 data needed for determining fully the amount and character of an appropriation. 



The court 'ihat fixed the volume of the water appropriated by the Moore Ditch 

 :it -132 cubic feet per second did not, and probablj- could not, know that the passage 

 of that volume of water through the ditch was a ph3'sical impossibility, or that even 

 half of it would have hopelessly wrecked the works, but the decision stands approved 

 by the highest court of the State. 



The custom lias been to treat a controversj' of this nature as a private matter, in 

 which only the parties to the controvers}' are interested. But the adjudication of a 

 right on a stream in an arid country is a public matter, affecting the rights of eveiy 

 other claimant on the stream, and the tribunal fixing the limits of any appropriation 

 should have at its hand full information concerning each claim on the stream and 

 full knowledge of the capacity of the stream to supply the demands made. A right 

 can not be adequately determined without full consideration of all other existing 

 rights, and when once fixed should be clearly defined as against every other conficting 

 claim. Until an adjudication means this it means nothing. 



The limits of the ripai-ian rights must be more clearly defined. As the matter 

 now stands, it may mean anything. In departing from the broad principle that courts 

 should be governed in their interpretation of law by the natural conditions and 

 necessities growing out of the environment of the people who make the courts, we 

 have been led into a maze of hopeless absurdities. IVIoore claims water as a riparian 

 owner, to be used on lands clearly not riparian. The owners of the Capay Ditch, with 

 lands stretching for miles away from the stream, claim that it is all riparian. The 

 man with 20 acres on the stream thinks the right belongs to him, and not to his 

 neighbor 10 rods away. Until some definite, reasonable limitation is placed on this 

 right there can be no certain progress. AVhen we know the limits of the right its 

 value can be determined, and then if it stands in the waj' of progress it can be 

 condemned, or purchased and paid for. 



The determination of the amount of water available for new uses is an exceedingly 

 important matter. If all the water in a stream has been utilized it is just that the 

 appropriator and the would-be appropriator should be apprised of the fact, and it is 

 not right that the homes of those who have used the water should be jeopardized by 

 a new use. Either the new claimant must fail or the old must suffer and both be 

 involved in controversj'. If there is unused water, there is no reason wh}' it should 

 not be officially known and the conditions set forth under which it can be secured. 

 This detennination of the amount of unappropriated water is not a simple problem; 

 it requires a full knowledge of the regime of the stream at all seasons, full information 



