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Cal. WAT § 4252

This is the official text of Cal. WAT § 4252, part of California’s Water Code — governs water rights and water resource management.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

In all cases of rights to divert the direct flow of a stream, without storage, for power development or other nonconsumptive use, where the entire flow so diverted, with the exception of reasonable transportation losses, is returned to the same stream system above the next lower diversion, the owners of these rights shall share on account of these rights only in the equal apportionment of one-tenth of the budget for the service area, and shall not share in so far as these rights are concerned in the apportionment of the remaining nine-tenths.

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.