Cal. WAT § 12579

This is the official text of Cal. WAT § 12579, part of California’s Water Code — governs water rights and water resource management.

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Official statutory text

It is hereby declared that recurrent floods on streams and rivers, and other waterways of the State, causing loss of life and property, disruption of commerce, interruption of transportation and communications, and wasting of water, are detrimental to the peace, health, safety, and welfare of the people of the State. The control, storage and full beneficial use of flood waters, and the prevention of damage by flood waters, and the washing away of river and stream banks by floods are proper functions and activities of the State, in cooperation with counties, cities, state agencies and public districts, and in cooperation with the United States, or any of its departments or agencies.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.