## Facts

- The Village of Tequesta operated a public water system using seven shallow wells that pumped over one million gallons per day from a shallow aquifer.
- Jupiter Inlet Corporation owned nearby land and planned a 120-unit condominium project requiring water from the same shallow aquifer.
- Heavy municipal withdrawals lowered freshwater levels, allowing saltwater intrusion from an adjacent waterway and endangering the shallow aquifer’s freshwater supply.
- Because the shallow aquifer was compromised, Jupiter could not obtain permission to use it and would instead need to access the deeper Floridan aquifer at substantially higher cost.
- Jupiter alleged Tequesta’s pumping effectively deprived it of beneficial use of the shallow aquifer underlying its property and sought compensation through inverse condemnation.

## Issues

1. Can a municipality be liable in inverse condemnation for pumping groundwater for public supply when the pumping deprives a nearby landowner of the beneficial use of the shallow aquifer beneath its land?

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the negative.
- The Court quashed the district court’s decision and reinstated summary judgment for Tequesta.
- The Court held there was no compensable taking because Jupiter lacked a constitutionally protected property interest in groundwater in place and had no existing, lawful use that was taken.

## Legal Principles

- Under Florida law, a landowner does not hold proprietary ownership of percolating groundwater in place; the landowner has only a usufructuary right to make reasonable use of water, subject to regulation.
- A takings claim in inverse condemnation requires governmental appropriation or destruction of a protected property interest; loss of a prospective, unexercised groundwater use does not qualify.
- The doctrine of reasonable use governs competing withdrawals from a common aquifer; municipal withdrawals for public supply may be lawful if reasonable and consistent with the regulatory scheme.
- Florida’s statutory water-management framework regulates the right to use water through permitting and does not create private ownership of the water resource itself.
- Increased development cost and other incidental economic harms from lawful public water use are generally noncompensable consequential damages rather than a taking.

## Conclusion

The court held that municipal pumping that impairs a neighboring landowner’s future ability to use a shallow aquifer does not constitute a compensable taking because groundwater is not owned in place and the claimant had no existing, perfected right to the use allegedly lost.


Village of Tequesta v. Jupiter Inlet Corp., 371 So. 2d 663 (Fla. 1979)