## Facts

- East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) supplied water to about 1.1 million residents in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, relying primarily on Mokelumne River rights and projecting future shortages.
- EBMUD negotiated and later entered a contract with the United States Bureau of Reclamation to obtain supplemental water associated with the Central Valley Project, involving diversion from the lower American River area near the Folsom South Canal.
- Environmental organizations and individual residents alleged the threatened diversion would substantially reduce downstream flows and harm wildlife and recreational uses along the lower American River.
- Plaintiffs alleged EBMUD controlled wastewater treatment operations that provided only primary treatment and discharged effluent into San Francisco Bay.
- Plaintiffs contended EBMUD had feasible alternatives through wastewater reclamation and recycling, and that EBMUD’s failure to implement such measures made its planned diversion and overall water use “wasteful” and “unreasonable.”
- The suit relied on California Constitution article X, section 2 and Water Code section 100, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief compelling reclamation and restricting diversion absent such measures.

## Issues

1. Whether private plaintiffs without a specific, competing water right or similar protectable interest may sue a public water agency under California Constitution article X, section 2 and Water Code section 100 to challenge allegedly unreasonable water use and diversion practices.
2. Whether claims attacking a public agency’s water-supply planning choices (including reclamation and point of diversion) present a justiciable controversy suitable for judicial determination at the pleading stage.
3. Whether allegations that reclamation and recycling were feasible alternatives state a claim that the agency’s existing practices and proposed diversion are unreasonable methods of use or diversion under article X, section 2 and section 100.

## Decision

- The trial court sustained defendants’ demurrers without leave to amend and entered judgment of dismissal.
- The Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal.
- The court concluded plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action under article X, section 2 and Water Code section 100 because they asserted generalized public and environmental concerns, not an adverse water right or other legally protectable interest against EBMUD.
- Judicial relief was not available on the pleaded theory to force a restructuring of EBMUD’s large-scale water management and supply decisions.

## Legal Principles

- California Constitution article X, section 2 and Water Code section 100 operate as constraints on water use and methods of diversion, but do not, standing alone, furnish a general private cause of action for members of the public lacking a concrete, protectable interest in the water at issue.
- A plaintiff invoking the reasonable-use limitation in litigation ordinarily must plead a specific entitlement or conflict (such as an adverse water right) rather than only broad environmental, recreational, or public-value concerns.
- Courts are reluctant to adjudicate, through generalized private suits, technical and policy-laden water-supply planning choices committed to public agencies and regulatory processes, absent a clearer legal duty or a direct interference with vested rights.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal at the demurrer stage, holding that private environmental plaintiffs and residents who did not claim an adverse water right could not use article X, section 2 and Water Code section 100 as standalone vehicles to compel wastewater reclamation or to block EBMUD’s planned American River diversion based on generalized public and environmental harms.


Envtl. Def. Fund, Inc. v. E. Bay Mun. Util. Dist., 52 Cal. App. 3d 828, 125 Cal. Rptr. 601 (Ct. App. 1975)