## Facts

- Pleasant Valley Canal Company, a mutual water company, diverted water from the Middle Fork of the Tule River and delivered it by ditch to about 80 shareholders irrigating roughly 1,400 acres.
- The Borrors owned upstream land along the river forks, including about 225 acres of permanent pasture historically flood-irrigated through the “Duncan Ditch.”
- The Duncan Ditch usually drew water from a hydroelectric plant tailrace operated by Southern California Edison; when the plant shut down for maintenance in summer 1990, the tailrace supply stopped and the Borrors diverted directly from the river.
- During low-flow conditions and altered operations, Pleasant Valley’s downstream headgate received materially less water.
- Pleasant Valley alleged the Borrors’ flood irrigation caused excessive diversion and “waste,” interfering with Pleasant Valley’s water rights.
- The Borrors asserted riparian rights as riverfront owners and claimed previously adjudicated appropriative rights, maintaining their long-standing irrigation was reasonable and beneficial.
- Prior water-right adjudications and an agreement between the parties were central to whether the Borrors had limited or surrendered any part of their rights.

## Issues

1. Whether the Borrors’ long-standing flood irrigation constituted unreasonable use or waste under California’s constitutional reasonable-use limitation.
2. Whether prior decrees or agreements clearly limited or extinguished the Borrors’ riparian and/or appropriative rights so as to justify an injunction reducing their historical use.
3. How to reconcile the parties’ respective riparian and appropriative rights during shortage conditions on the Middle Fork.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the finding that the Borrors’ flood-irrigation practices were not wasteful and were a reasonable beneficial use under the circumstances.
- The court reversed the injunction to the extent it substantially reduced the Borrors’ historical use based on a supposed bargain-away or surrender of rights.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings and modification of the judgment consistent with the appellate court’s interpretation of the parties’ rights.

## Legal Principles

- All California water rights, riparian and appropriative, are constrained by Cal. Const. art. X, § 2: water must be put to reasonable and beneficial use, and unreasonable use or waste is prohibited.
- Whether a use is “reasonable” is fact-specific and depends on local conditions, historic practices, land characteristics, feasibility of alternatives, and competing demands; water loss from seepage or percolation is not automatically “waste.”
- Riparian rights generally have priority over later appropriative rights, subject to the constitutional reasonable-use limitation and any specific, valid limitations established by adjudication or contract.
- Courts will not infer forfeiture, waiver, or substantial diminution of vested water rights from ambiguous decrees or agreements; a claimed surrender must be clearly expressed and supported by the record.
- Injunctive relief materially curtailing a long-established water use requires a sound legal basis and evidentiary support tied to the actual scope of the right.

## Conclusion

The court accepted that traditional flood irrigation on upstream riparian pasture could be a reasonable beneficial use and rejected treating it as waste on this record, while also holding that a major judicial reduction of long-standing use could not rest on unclear decrees or agreements and required a clearer showing of surrendered rights.


Pleasant Valley Canal Co. v. Borror, 61 Cal. App. 4th 742, 72 Cal. Rptr. 2d 1 (Ct. App. 1998)