1. Where in the law is it written that all uses of water in California must be both reasonable and beneficial?

2. In a recent document, commenting on California's "dual system" of water rights, the following statement is made:  "Under the riparian doctrine, the owner of land has the right to divert but not store a portion of the natural flow of water passing by her land for reasonable and beneficial use on the land adjacent to the stream and within its watershed."  As a matter of law is this statement:

3. The same commentary states at another point that "Under the prior appropriation doctrine, a person has the right to divert, store, and use water regardless of whether the land on which it is used is adjacent to a stream or within its watershed, provided that the water is used for reasonable and beneficial uses, provided further that the water is surplus to water from the same stream used by earlier appropriators, and provided further that the right has been certified under state law since 1914."  As a matter of law is this statement:

4. "Under the Equal Footing Doctrine in Constitutional law, each state has title to tidelands and the beds of navigable lakes and streams within its borders.  A further doctrine, recognized in some form by most states and especially important in California, incorporates the principle that the state holds title to such properties within the state in special keeping for the beneficial use of the public at large.   Rights of access to these properties, as well as rights to public use of the resources they contain for navigation, commerce, fishing, scientific study, and the protection of fish and wildlife, are inalienable."  This is a succinct statement of:

5. Under the legal regime in which, prior to Katz v. Walkinshaw (1903), rights to groundwater in California were predominantly overlying rights, the legal entitlement to the use of groundwater was:

6. What kind of water right important to the management of public land reservations in America is the subject of U.S. v. New Mexico (1978)?

7. Under which rule of law were navigable waters said to extend "as far as the tide goes?"

8. From which clause of the U.S. Constitution does Congress derive the power to regulate waterways in America that meet the test of being "navigable in fact?"

9. Which statute created the "section 10 permit program" to keep navigable waters free from obstructions?

10. If, under the General Mining Law of 1872, your company legally stakes a claim to 20 acres of public lands, can it then occupy the land indefinitely without making any investment in mineral prospecting or recovery?

11. The holding of the Ninth Circuit in Swanson v. Babbitt (1993) is that:

12. Since enactment of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 and under the several other leasing statutes subsequently passed by Congress, is it an absolute requirement of federal law that leases be issued only subsequent to competitive bidding?

GW-S/March 1998