water

As designating a commodity or a subject of ownership, this term has the same meaning in law as in common speech; but in another sense, and especially in the plural, it may designate a body of water, such as a river, a lake, or an ocean, or an aggregate of such bodies of water, as in the phrases "foreign waters," "waters of the United States," and the like.

See also flood water

- high water line high water mark

- implied reservation of water doctrine

- inland waters

- intermittent stream

- low-water mark

- waste water.

- backwater.

- coast waters.

@ developed water

Water which is brought to the surface and made available for use by the party claiming the water.

@ flood waters

Waters which escape from a water course in great volume and flow over adjoining lands in no regular channel. The fact that such errant waters make for themselves a temporary channel or follow some natural channel, gully, or depression does not affect their character as "flood waters" or give to the course which they follow the character of a natural "water course." Everett v. Davis, Cal.App., 107 P.2d 650, 654, 655.

See also flood

@ foreign waters

Those belonging to another nation or country or subject to another jurisdiction, as distinguished from "domestic" waters.

@

- inland waters

- navigable waters

@ percolating waters

/parkaleyting wotarz/

Those which pass through the ground beneath the surface of the earth without any definite channel, and do not form a part of the body or flow, surface or subterranean, of any water-course. They may be either rain waters which are slowly infiltrating through the soil or waters seeping through the banks or the bed of a stream, and which have so far left the bed and the other waters as to have lost their character as a part of the flow of that stream. Those which ooze, seep, or filter, through the soil beneath the surface without a defined channel, or in a course that is unknown and not discoverable from surface indications without excavation for that purpose. C & W Coal Corp. v. Salyer, 200 Va. 18, 104 S.E.2d 50, 53.

@ private waters

Non-navigable streams, or bodies of water not open to the resort and use of the general public, but entirely owned and controlled by one or more individuals.

@ public waters

Such as are adapted for the purposes of navigation, or those to which the general public have a right of access, as distinguished from artificial lakes, ponds, and other bodies of water privately owned, or similar natural bodies of water owned exclusively by one or more persons.

@ subterranean waters

Waters which lie wholly beneath the surface of the ground, and which either ooze and seep through the subsurface strata without pursuing any defined course or channel (percolating waters), or flow in a permanent and regular but invisible course, or lie under the earth in a more or less immovable body, as a subterranean lake.

@ surface waters

Those waters coming unto the ground and naturally spreading over the ground before they have formed into natural watercourses. Kirkpatrick v. Butler, 14 Ariz.App. 379, 483 P.2d 790, 794.

As distinguished from the waters of a natural stream, lake, or pond, surface waters are such as diffuse themselves over the surface of the ground, following no defined course or channel, and not gathering into or forming any more definite body of water than a mere bog or marsh. They generally originate in rains and melting snows, but the flood waters of a river may also be considered as surface waters if they become separated from the main current, or leave it never to return, and spread out over lower ground. Water derived from rains and melting snows that is diffused over surface of the ground, and it continues to be such and may be impounded by the owner of the land until it reaches some well-defined channel in which it is accustomed to, and does, flow with other waters, or until it reaches some permanent lake or pond, whereupon it ceases to be "surface water" and becomes a "water course" or a "lake" or "pond," as the case may be. Bohaty v. Briard, 219 Neb. 42, 361 N.W.2d 502, 506.

@ surplus water

Water running off from ground which has been irrigated; water not consumed by the process of irrigation; water which the land irrigated will not take up.

@

- territorial waters

- tide water (tide)

@ water-bayley

An officer mentioned in the colony laws of New Plymouth, (A.D. 1671,) whose duty was to collect dues to the colony for fish taken in their waters. Probably another form of water-bailiff

@ water front

Land or land with buildings fronting on a body of water

@ water-gage

A sea-wall or bank to restrain the current and overflowing of the water; also an instrument to measure water

@ water-gang

A Saxon word for a trench or course to carry a stream of water, such as are commonly made to drain water out of marshes

@ water-gavel

In old records, a gavel or rent paid for fishing in or other benefit received from some river or water

@ water-logged

A vessel is "water-logged" when she becomes heavy and unmanageable on account of the leakage of water into the hold

@ water power

The water power to which a riparian owner is entitled consists of the fall in the stream when in its natural state, as it passes through his land, or along the boundary of it; or, in other words, it consists of the difference of level between the surface where the stream first touches his land, and the surface where it leaves it. The use of water for power according to common understanding means its application to a water wheel to the end that its energy under the specified head and fall may be utilized and converted into available force. Holyoke Water Power Co. v. American Writing Paper Co., D.C.Mass., 17 F.Supp. 895, 898

@ water rights

A legal right, in the nature of a corporeal hereditament, to use the water of a natural stream or water furnished through a ditch or canal, for general or specific purposes, such as irrigation, mining, power, or domestic use, either to its full capacity or to a measured extent or during a defined portion of the time. City of Los Angeles v. City of Glendale, Cal.App., 132 P.2d 574, 584.

A usufruct in a stream consisting in the right to have the water flow so that some portion of it may be reduced to possession and be made private property of individual; the right to divert water from natural stream by artificial means and apply the same to beneficial use. Ronzio v. Denver & R. G. W. R. Co., C.C.A. Utah, 116 F.2d 604, 605.

It includes right to change the place of diversion, storage, or use of water if rights of other water users will not be injured. Lindsey v. McClure, C.C.A.N.M., 136 F.2d 65, 70.

It was also said to be real property which may be sold and transferred separately from land on which it has been used. Federal Land Bank of Spokane v. Union Cent. Life Ins. Co., 54 Idaho 161, 29 P.2d 1009, 1011.

See also artificially developed water

- common enemy doctrine

- drainage rights

- excess or surplus water

- implied reservation of water doctrine

- littoral rights

- mill privilege

- overlying right

- reasonable use theory

- riparian rights.

@ waterscape

An aqueduct or passage for water

@ waters of the United States

All waters within the United States which are navigable for the purposes of commerce, or whose navigation successfully aids commerce, are included in this term.

See also territorial waters

@

- water course

- natural water course