## Facts

- Plaintiffs owned land riparian to Lone Tree Creek and historically irrigated using the creek’s intermittent, rain-fed natural flow.
- Oakdale Irrigation District diverted water from the Stanislaus River through canals to irrigate lands within the district.
- As a result of irrigation operations, some diverted Stanislaus River water entered the Lone Tree Creek channel as seepage, waste, and spill, creating a more regular and at times continuous flow past plaintiffs’ diversion point.
- The Stanislaus River and Lone Tree Creek had separate watersheds and did not naturally contribute flow to each other; Lone Tree Creek was normally dry outside the rainy season.
- After decades, the district changed operations and constructed or expanded facilities to intercept and recapture more of the return flow within its boundaries, reducing the amount reaching plaintiffs.
- Plaintiffs claimed a right to a continuous flow of 2 cubic feet per second in Lone Tree Creek based on long use of the augmented flow and sought damages and an injunction to prevent the district’s recapture.

## Issues

1. Whether downstream users who appropriated and used “foreign” water introduced into a natural stream by an irrigation district acquired a vested right to the continued escape of that foreign water.
2. Whether the producing district could recapture and beneficially reuse foreign water within its boundaries, even if doing so reduced downstream users’ supply derived from the prior waste and spill.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s judgment for plaintiffs.
- The court held plaintiffs had no right to compel the district to continue allowing foreign water to escape into Lone Tree Creek.
- The district could recapture and beneficially use the foreign water within its boundaries as against plaintiffs’ claim to the augmented flow.
- The decree quieting a right to 2 cfs of continuous flow, the perpetual injunction, and the $3,000 damages award were set aside.

## Legal Principles

- Water imported from a different watershed and introduced into a stream by artificial diversion and irrigation return flows constitutes “foreign” water as to that stream’s natural system.
- A downstream appropriator’s long use of foreign water discharged as waste or spill does not create a right to require the producer to continue wasting or discharging that water.
- The producer of foreign water may recapture and beneficially reuse it within its own system, so long as doing so does not impair vested rights in the stream’s natural (non-foreign) flow or violate an independent legal obligation.

## Conclusion

The court held that plaintiffs’ reliance on a long-standing, artificially created flow of imported water did not give them a vested entitlement to its continued discharge, and the irrigation district remained free to conserve, recapture, and reuse that foreign water within its boundaries rather than allow it to continue draining to downstream users.


Stevens v. Oakdale Irrigation Dist., 13 Cal. 2d 343, 90 P.2d 58 (Cal. 1939)