CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-CONSERVATION OF WATERS-VALIDITY OF STATUTE LIMITING RIPARIAN RIGHTS

Authors

Abstract

By the common law a riparian owner on a non-navigable stream has a vested right in the continuous natural flow of the stream on or bordering his land. An Oregon statute undertakes to cut down this right; it provides that a riparian owner's vested right to the continuous flow of the stream is limited to such flow as is necessary to preserve to him the beneficial uses to which he is already putting the water. Inasmuch as the right to the full continuous flow as against non-riparian appropriators is really a right to insist upon the availability of the stream for use, it is apparent that this statute puts a limitation on the extent to which the owner may later use the waters of the stream. This statute is a part of a Water Code the purpose of which is to secure the most economic distribution of the waters of the state for irrigation, commercial and domestic purposes. It is founded upon the public interest in preventing the waste of a natural resource of a limited nature. Those objecting to the statute do so on the grounds that it takes away a vested property right without compensation and is, therefore, a denial of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Recommended Citation

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-CONSERVATION OF WATERS-VALIDITY OF STATUTE LIMITING RIPARIAN RIGHTS, 34 Mich. L. Rev. 274 (1935).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol34/iss2/7