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Based in Los Angeles, California, Veatch Carlson, LLP, has been providing collaborative and assertive legal defense and prosecution services for more than 60 years. During that time, Veatch Carlson, LLP, has amassed a skilled group of professionals familiar with a huge range of legal areas, including riparian water rights.
The state of California recognizes two kinds of water rights: appropriative and riparian. Prior appropriation water rights are more typical of the Western states in the US. According to this doctrine, the person who uses stream or river water first has a continued right to use that water source over people who begin using the water source later on. In many cases, this is the person living upstream, thus preventing downstream residents from obtaining the same amount of water. However, upstream users must not cause any water pollution or contamination, so that downstream users have access to clean water.
Riparian water rights are more common among Eastern states, but California adopted them along with many English common laws when it became officially incorporated. These types of rights occur as a result of landownership, and state that a person who owns land touching a pond, river, stream, or other source of surface water has an equal right to use that water. But, the water can only be used as it passes through the property and must be returned to its source so that all other property owners along its shores can also use the water source.
