- Jan 1 - The 1st ever Tournament of Roses is held in Pasadena, CA
- May 8 - The 1st ever Coca-Cola is sold in Atlanta, GA --- containing trace amounts of cocaine.
- Sept 4 - Apache Leader Geronimo surrenders to US troops in AZ, ending the last US-Indian War
The court found that Riparian Rights to water held priority but that Appropriative Rights were secondary and binding. What the hell does that mean??
REALLY BASIC explanation - Riparian Rights says that if your land has water ON it, you get to use is how you want. Appropriation Rights say that the, "First in Time is the First in Right," basically stating that if called it first, you get. Like playing shotgun for the front seat of a car on a long road trip, except this has to do with the very lifeblood of our state and our people - water.
To be clear, all of this case law only applied to surface water and groundwater that was percolating up to the surface. There was NOTHING said about groundwater in underground aquifers. Meaning since the beginning of CA, if you owned land that had groundwater a couple hundred feet down, it belonged to you. Much like mineral rights, rights to any water contained under your land was yours to do with as you pleased as long as the usage was for Beneficial Purposes and by Reasonable Method of Use. Meaning farmers could use the water to grow their crops, but some asshole couldn't dig a well and use groundwater to spray into the air 24/7/365 just so he could run under it sometimes.
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| This probably wouldn't fly either. |
Why are we talking about this?
Gov. Jerry Brown this week signed legislation for the first time in CA history giving government oversight and regulation to the use of groundwater. Making good use of our current horrendous drought that I have already well documented here and here, Gov Brown pushed Sacramento legislators to get in the game... and they have. The regulations come in 3 bills. The first demands local governmental agencies to develop a groundwater management plan. The second puts forth a timeline that the state can step in if the local regulators aren't doing their job to put their plans into action. The third plays to farmers, and postpones actions by the state in places where surface water has been depleted by groundwater pumping.
It should be noted that California is the LAST Western State with a "pump as you please" look at groundwater rights. Other Western states have, for years, regulated ground water pumping as they see groundwater as a scarce and valuable resource. In California, farmers have been in a costly race to dig the deepest wells to grab up all the available water - costing millions in depleted aquifers, destroyed roads and canals.
Many experts expect protracted legal battles challenging the new regulations even though insiders believe the new regulations may not take effect for close to a decade. The newly signed legislation gives local planners two years to submit their plans and five years after that to implement the plan. The state will be able to enforce the plans by metering water and issuing fines for noncooperation.
Gov Brown is taking advantage of everything he possibly can surrounding his enormous popularity and this drought. He is using it to push through his plan to dig gigantic tunnels under the Sacramento Delta to bring water to thirsty Angelenos and the rest of SoCal faster, he is trying to bully the courts into keeping our prisons massively overcrowded (more to come on that topic shortly), and he continues to push his bullet train with all its enormous challenges.
When the Governor is a shoe in for another term, when one party controls both houses of our State Congress, things get passed! Look on this as a positive or a negative, but things get passed!
Let me know what you think. I would love to revisit this in a few years and see where all these planners have gone and what the results look like... especially after a nice rain storm.
Cheers
TJ Franco
PS - At least plans like these will never cut the mustard with the new regulations.
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