Brown v. City of Cle Elum

255 P. 961, 143 Wash. 606, 55 A.L.R. 1176, 1927 Wash. LEXIS 684
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedApril 28, 1927
DocketNo. 20441. Department Two.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 255 P. 961 (Brown v. City of Cle Elum) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. City of Cle Elum, 255 P. 961, 143 Wash. 606, 55 A.L.R. 1176, 1927 Wash. LEXIS 684 (Wash. 1927).

Opinion

Parker, J.

Tbe plaintiff, Brown, commenced this action in the superior court for Kittitas county seeking injunctive relief restraining the defendant city *607 from enforcing or attempting to enforce its ordinance, “particularly in so far as it prohibits or attempts to prohibit swimming, fishing or boating in Lake Cle Elum,” from which is taken the city’s water supply. A trial in that court upon the merits resulted in a judgment awarding to Brown an injunction as prayed for by him, from which the city has appealed to this court.

Cle Elum is a duly organized municipality of this state as a city of the third class, having a population of approximately three thousand inhabitants. Lake Cle Elum is a considerable body of fresh water, about five miles long and about one mile in average width, lying in a mountain valley about six miles northwest of the city. Its outlet, which is at the southeasterly end, is the Cle Elum river, which flows southeasterly some six or seven miles into the Yakima river. In May, 1905, the United States, acting through its reclamation service, in pursuance of the acts of Congress and ch. 88 of the Laws of 1905, p. 180, of this state (Bern. Comp. Stat., §§ 7408-7415) [P. C. §§ 3376-3383], appropriated the waters of the lake and its tributary streams for a project looking to the storing and distribution of the waters of the lake and its tributary streams for irrigation of lands within the Yakima valley. In 1906, the city established a source of water supply at a point on the Cle Elum river a short distance below the outlet of the lake, and commenced to take water therefrom. The city continued to take water from that source until 1922, when it entered into a contract with the United States for the taking of water from its dam, maintained at the lake outlet; since which time, the city has taken water therefrom instead of from its formerly used source farther down the river. By that contract, the city pays to the United States *608 three hundred dollars per year for the privilege of so taking three cubic feet of water per second and for the use of an easement right of way for its pipe line across the land of the United States to the dam. The city claims the right to take three cubic feet of water from the river, independent of the contract, evidently by virtue of its appropriation and continuous taking for a period of some sixteen years. The contract recites this claim of the city, but does not expressly concede its validity.

During several years past, the United States has rented summer cottage sites along the southerly and easterly shore of the lake, the nearest occupied one being about one-half mile from the dam. There are about fifty of such cottages occupied in the summer seasons, and a few continue to be occupied the whole of the year. They are all located comparatively near together. The plaintiff, Brown, is sueh a tenant of the United States, owning and occupying one of the cottages the whole of the year. There has been considerable swimming, fishing and boating in and on the lake. All of the lands in question, that is, the whole of the drainage basin, which is some twenty-three miles long with a maximum width of seventeen miles, sending waters into the lake, belonged to the United States as the original owner, nearly all of it having been reserved from sale or other disposition and placed in the Wenatchee National Forest Beservation; the remaining small portion, bordering directly upon the lake, having been disposed of prior to the establishment of the forest reservation, has again been acquired by the United States by purchase.

In September, 1925, the city passed Ordinance No. 237, the provisions of which, so far as need be here noticed, are as follows:

*609 “Section 1. That for the purpose of protecting the water supply furnished to the inhabitants of the City of Cle Elum from pollution, and for the preservation and protection of the purity of said water supply, the City of Cle Elum assumes jurisdiction over all the property occupied by the works, reservoirs, systems, springs, branches and pipes by means of tributaries constituting the source of supply from which said City of Cle Elum obtains its supply of water, and over all streams, creeks or tributaries constituting such sources of supply, whether the same or any part thereof, be within the corporate limits of such city, or outside thereof. 0
“Section 2. That the following acts shall constitute offense against the purity of such water supply; swimming, fishing, and boating in Cle Elum Lake; dumping raw sewage into any lake, river, spring, stream, creek or tributary constituting the source of supply of water of the City of Cle Elum, or camping on the shores of said streams, lakes, etc. No dwelling shall be constructed or maintained on the water shed, unless said dwelling is provided with a sanitary toilet so designed and so kept that the contents of said toilet cannot drain on the surface of the ground or reach the water through the ground.
“Section 3. That every person who shall deposit or cause to be deposited in any spring, stream, river or lake constituting the source of supply from which said City of Cle Elum obtains its supply of water, any matter or thing whatever, dangerous or deleterious to health, or any matter or thing which may or could pollute the waters of such spring, stream, river, lake or water system, shall be deemed guilty of violation of this ordinance.”

The ordinance further provides for punishment for violation of its provisions, by fine or imprisonment or both. In the passage of this ordinance, the city assumed to exercise police power which is, in terms, given to it by the following sections of Remington’s Compiled *610 Statutes (Rem. Comp. Stat., §§ 9127, 9473) [P. C. §§797, 1254], relating to the protection of sources of water supplies of cities and towns:

“§ 9127. The city council of such city [city of third class] shall have power— , . .
. “To purify and prevent the pollution of streams of water, lakes or other sources of supply, and for this purpose shall have jurisdiction over all streams, lakes or other sources of supply, both within and without the city limits. Such city shall have power to provide by ordinance and to enforce such punishment or penalty as the city council may deem proper for the offense of polluting or in any manner obstructing or interfering with the water supply of such city or source thereof ... ”
■“§9473.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
255 P. 961, 143 Wash. 606, 55 A.L.R. 1176, 1927 Wash. LEXIS 684, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-city-of-cle-elum-wash-1927.