320 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



counties. The fixing of water rates has always been a fruitful source for charges of 

 official corruption and has led to much litigation. Whenever the landowners them- 

 selves own the canals, and the charge or assessment is graded from j-ear to year to 

 barely meet the expense of canal maintenance and management, there appears to be 

 no further need for the regulation of the water rates. 



Comparatively few canal companies have been organized in central portions of 

 the State for the sale of water to irrigators. When the canal companies are not 

 controlled by the landowners who are served with their water, agreements or water 

 contracts are usualh' entei'ed into under which the landowner obligates himself to 

 pay a stipulated sum annually to the canal company. He is charged an annual rate 

 for canal management and maintenance. It is generally assumed that such water 

 contracts and annual rates paid are not subject to regulation as in ordinary cases of 

 sales of water. 



These contracts appear defective, particularly in this, that no intent is disclosed 

 of ever transferring the canal ownership to the landowner who virtually has paid for 

 the canal construction. The $10 per acre, or whatever price may have been fixed 

 by the canal corporation, is a payment for the privilege of receiving water. It is 

 practically a bonus paid to the canal companj'. Such payments are often agreed 

 upon by landowners before canals are built to encourage and aid in the canal con- 

 struction. It is then a recognition of the unearned increment, a voluntary contri- 

 bution made to an enterprising ditch or canal builder, in consideration of the value 

 added to the land when it is brought under ditch. When such bonus is paid to the 

 owner of a canal alread}^ constructed, the contract made takes the form of a water- 

 right agreement. As the bonus so paid is usually fixed high enough to reimburse 

 the ditch owner for his original outlay and for the risk he has assumed, it would 

 seem a desirable arrangement to have the canal ownership pass to the water-right 

 owners when a stipulated number of water rights have been sold. No canal enter- 

 prise has j'et been inaugurated on these lines in this section. All canal companies 

 selling water rights retain their ownership intact when water is sold to full canal 

 capacity. 



If it be granted that rights have been vested, whether under the common law or 

 otherwise, then the taking of water to the detriment and actual damage of lands in 

 which such rights are vested, should be under the right of eminent domain, and after 

 due process of law full compensation for such taking should be made. Moreover, 

 the taking of waters for irrigation which are not surplus waters should then be 

 permitted only when irrigation can be shown to be a higher use. On the other hand, 

 when there is no actual damage no one, even with prior vested rights, should have 

 the right to interfere with new enterprises. There should then be some means of 

 determining what waters are available for appropriation in excess of those necessary 

 to be left in the streams to satisfy the needs of riparian owners and of prior 

 appropriators. 



This has not been the case in the past, and it is rather surprising that there has 

 not been greater interference bj' riparian owners with irrigation works than has 

 actually taken place. This is due mainly to the fact that riparian owners have not 

 had immediate important use for the water themselves, and have been reluctant to 

 plunge into expensive and protracted litigation; they have, too, in man}' cases 

 asserted their riparian rights only to better themselves as appropriators. 



