It is hereby declared that the people of the State have a paramount interest in the use of all the water of the State and that the State shall determine what water of the State, surface and underground, can be converted to public use or controlled for public protection.
Cal. Water Code § 104
General State Policy
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Kern-Tulare Water District v. City of Bakersfield (1986)
Most recently applied in Center for Biological Diversity v. County of San Bernardino (May 2016)
Enacted by Stats. 1943, Ch. 368.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.