How Can We Solve the Great California Water Mystery?

Starting from the 1850s, miners, farmers, and early manufacturers in California secured their fortunes by claiming the water rights of rivers and streams throughout the state. The rule was simple: first come, first served. The only requirement was to use the water or lose the right to it.

Use the water they did, building ditches, waterways, dams, farms, factories, and entire communities. However, after 170 years, it has become a mystery as to who owns these water rights today.

Answering this question should be easy, as many water officials in the state initially believed it would be. All we need to do is visit a small room deep in the basement of an old office building in Sacramento, California, where the records are stored.

But all the original water-rights documents were handwritten, often using language and terms of bygone eras. With faded ink, this makes them virtually impossible to read and understand.

These ledgers also contain photos, maps, and images, but those have become unglued from their pages. Today, it is almost impossible to determine which photo, map, or image belongs to which document and ledger. Making matters worse, the records have not been digitalized and are therefore unsearchable.

We should note that in 1914, the state tried to address this haphazard situation by issuing permits and licenses. But that failed because, as is the challenge today, major farms and water districts laid claims to water long before 1914. This limited the state’s authority.

And these water rights are still closely claimed by groups and organizations throughout the state, even though the validity of their claims is virtually impossible to determine.

"In the Central Valley of California, you've got so many water-rights holders who believe their water rights are whatever their granddaddy said they were," said Felicia Marcus, a visiting fellow at Stanford and former California water board chair. "But in most cases, they simply can't prove it."

To address the dilemma and solve the mystery, the state is taking these ledgers and scanning them, hoping computers can put them in some type of order. But the process is slow, and the state's director of water rights is going to ask each claimant to prove their water rights. This means whatever Grandaddy said 170 years ago must be proven or it literally will not hold water.

The situation has become very difficult and very worrying for farmers and organizations throughout the state. According to John Herrick, a lawyer representing growers in the California delta, "You must find somebody's journal that said, 'I got up today on Aug. 21 in 1890 and opened the gate [to my water],’ only to discover such records no longer exist."

Why This Is Important

The state's water board knows they have their hands full in trying to determine who has rights to California’s water. Further, they expect lawsuits to follow when they make decisions, either for or against the claimant. This will slow down the process for years.

But it must be done.

It's considered one of the first steps in reducing water consumption and using it more equitably and efficiently throughout the state.

The bottom-line is that if California’s residents want the water to last, water efficiency must be practiced by all water users. Verifying who has rights to the water and is or is not responsible for its use, is the first step in making this happen.?

Klaus Reichardt is CEO and founder of Waterless Co, Inc, pioneers in advancing water efficiency. ?Reichardt founded the company in 1991 with the goal of establishing a new market segment in the plumbing fixture industry with water efficiency in mind. Reichardt is a frequent writer and presenter, discussing water conservation issues.? He can be reached at [email protected]