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Chapter 6: Pueblo Water Rights
In theory, the Cuyamaca Water Company’s suc-
cessor, the La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Spring
Valley Irrigation District, lost its water following
the 1930 state Supreme Court Decision. In
practice, however, it only lost its right to the
water; it still owned all the dams and facilities.
The city of San Diego gained the right to the
water, but it could not afford to buy the facilities
to receive it. The irrigation district needed
water; the city needed a distribution system.
Neither group liked the idea of annexing the
water district to the city, and the irrigation dis-
trict was not willing to sell because it needed
water more than money. Thus, they worked
out a compromise: the city let the irrigation dis-
trict have some water and the irrigation district
let the city use its distribution system.
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THE 1930 SUPREME COURT DECISION
THE PRACTICAL AFTERMATH
THE LEGAL AFTERMATH
The question of pueblo water rights had
another day in court. In 1955, Los Angeles
sued communities in the San Fernando Valley
to assert its prior and paramount water rights.
After 13 years of examining historical
documents and questioning experts, the
court ruled against Los Angeles and refuted a
pueblo’s successor’s absolute right to water at
the expense of other users. It reduced Los
Angeles’ share of
water in the San Fernando
Valley by one-third. The decision read, “The
so-called ‘pueblo water right’ had no support
in Spanish or Mexican law and … its statement
in some of the [earlier] cases was based solely
upon erroneous translation, incomplete and
inaccurate citations and unsupported conclu-
sions drawn therefrom.”
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That seemed a definitive blow to the city of Los
Angeles’ assertion of paramount pueblo rights,
but it was not. Los Angeles appealed to the
state Supreme Court, which overturned the
lower court ruling in 1975. Although it
acknowledged that pueblo rights remained
inconclusive, it upheld the notion of letting prior
decisions stand, especially older ones that
would have far-reaching effects if overturned.
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Edward Fletcher
The San Diego Historical
Society