Couple turn off spigot - then pay

Sacramento Bee ^ | February 20, 2004 | Jane Braxton Little

[farmfriend]

TAYLORSVILLE - Jana and Ian McDowell think of themselves as law-abiding citizens who follow the advice of state officials.

Their conscientiousness has cost them $25,000 and four years of strife. They blame the California Department of Water Resources.

At the center of the issue is a ditch on the McDowells' Plumas County property and advice from state officials about who has rights to the water that flows through it.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Prime Choice]

Leave it to California to give you the royal screw and then pass the buck.

I am SO out of this idiot state!

[AmericanVictory]

Letting the state control water rights instead of having a water rights system stemming from case law precedent attuned to needs of particular locations is not the way to go. It is best to have water rights law that can be privately enforced as opposed to idiot fiats from a water bureaucrat.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[jimtorr]

"Nobody's ever pleased to see a mistake made, but ... the notion that the state should pay any funds at all for a discretionary error is not consistent with what the Legislature has provided," Thalhammer said.

How can the your office be relied upon for any opinion, then?

I am so glad that I left Calicircus in 2000. Not that Maryland is all that much better, but it's a matter of degree.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I read this different.
The guy wanted to cut off water to his neighbors and had the water police write him a letter to allow him to cut the
water off. The letter did not tell him to cut off the water.
He cut the water off out of spite.

[BlessedBeGod]

Ah, so you're a mindreader.

[festus]

;I am SO out of this idiot state!

Pilgrim you must have lived there a long time. Yer even talkin like em..... ;-)

[2111USMC]

"The watermaster's initial reading of the legal document was erroneous, he said, but it was a legitimate interpretation."

WTF? It was either erroneous or a legitimate interpretation. How can it be both?

[dcwusmc]

A mindreader who only wants to read the WORST of motives in men! Sure glad you're not MY neighbor!

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I would not shut off your water!

[dcwusmc]

"The McDowells' problems began in July 2000, when a neighbor complained that he was not getting enough water from the ditch that flows from Indian Creek through a millrace to more than a dozen properties. The McDowells' seven-acre parcel is the first to receive water diverted from the millrace and the only one listed with water rights for the last 50 years.


"The McDowells contacted the local official who administers water rights for their area and were told to cease allowing water to flow to properties in Taylorsville.


"'None of the current property owners ... are entitled to any water rights,' Indian Valley Watermaster Robert M. Carbajal told the McDowells in a letter dated July 31, 2000.


"To comply, the McDowells blocked the flow with a simple earth dam. Their neighbor sued."


Apparently, they thought they were following lawful directions when they stopped the water flow...

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[editor-surveyor]

"It is best to have water rights law that can be privately enforced as opposed to idiot fiats from a water bureaucrat."

While I share your distaste for bureaucrats, the practical, and logical extension of your proposal would put us in the same situation as Nevada. If you don't think that is far worse, perhaps you don't know enough about Nevada.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Rights to private property bump.

This bit made no mention of the fact that one can be sued by anyone anytime for anything.

One either has water rights or not. If so, under law, then to let the water flow is but making a gift, taxable if in excess of $10,000 under the IRS code, 1040 filing reporting required none the less.

Dare I say now an entitlement?

The defendants may have desired only use of their own water, their own private property.

Did the plaintiff offer to buy water or did they just sue?

Our governments are irresponsible far beyond the self-serving doctrine of sovereign immunity, a stinking fig leaf.

[ASA Vet]

To comply, the McDowells blocked the flow with a simple earth dam. Their neighbor sued."

The neighbor sued the wrong party.
The suit should have been against the Indian Creek Water Authority.