LEGAL PERSPECTIVES ON SUBSIDENCE CAUSED BY GROUNDWATER WITHDRAWAL IN TEXAS, CALIFORNIA, AND ARIZONA, U.S.A.

Michael C. Carpenter1'2 and Michael D. Bradley2 XU.S. Geological Survey WRD, Tuc son, Arizona, USA department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Abstract Damages from subsidence caused by ground-water withdrawal include shore­line submergence, well-casing failures, and changes in gradients of canals, sewers, irrigation ditches, and streams. Potential damages from subsidence-related earth fissuring include structural damage to roads, railroads, and buildings, ruptured sewers and pipelines, and aquifer con­tamination. The ground-water doctrine of English rule of capture has prevented recovery for damages due to subsidence in Texas. In the land­mark Friendswood case of 1978, the Texas Supreme Court added negligence as a cause of action for recovery. Texas also established the Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District to control subsidence. In California, some water districts control subsidence with conservation measures, pump taxes, and importation of surface water. The 1980 Arizona Ground Water Management Act has minor provisions for controlling subsid­ence. The act seeks safe yield in Active Management Areas by the year 2025 using five management periods. The Subsidence Monitoring Plan for Arizona provides for a central data facility on subsidence in the State.

Introduction Natural subsidence has caused problems for thousands of years. When geologic processes cause lake, bay, and ocean shorelines to sink below the water level, valuable property can be lost or damaged. Sinkholes that develop in karst terrains are dramatic examples of loss of subjacent support due to natural geologic processes. In addition, induced subsidence from the extraction of subsurface resources such as oil and gas, water, sulphur, salt, coal, and geothermal energy has become an economic and social problem. Among areas affected by subsidence caused by ground-water withdrawal are Mexico City, Mexico; Venice, Italy; Houston-Galveston, Texas; San Joaquin Valley, California; and Eloy Basin, Arizona.

Poland (1969) used soil-consolidation theory and the principle of effective stress (Terzaghi, 1925) to account for aquifer compaction and subsidence. In a confined aquifer, the fluid pressure provides some support for the overlying sediments. Decrease in pressure in the aquifer due to pumping causes an increased stress on the matrix of the aquifer. This stress results in compaction of the aquifer as a whole. In an unconfined aquifer, the water exerts a buoyant force on the matrix. As the water table declines, buoyancy decreases in the dewatered zone, increasing the effective stress throughout the unconfined aquifer. Fine-grained units of high porosity and low permeability usually are included in or are boundaries for confined and unconfined aquifers. When the pore pressure in the aquifer decreases relative to that in the fine-grained units, water flows from the fine-grained units into the adjacent coarser units until the pore pressures equilibrate. This

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process commonly takes from a few weeks to many decades, is mostly irreversible although it can be stopped by aquifer repressurization, and can account for most of the total subsidence of a system.

Earth fissuring occurs in alluvial basins in Arizona, California, and Nevada and is commonly attributed to differential subsidence due to ground-water-level declines over buried geologic structures (Peterson, 1962; Schumann and Poland 1969; Laney and others, 1978; Jachens and Holzer, 1979). In Arizona, nearly all fissures occur in alluvium less than 300 m thick near mountain fronts in such areas as Picacho, Casa Grande, Chandler Heights, Apache Junction, and Avra Valley. Fissures commonly open from a few millimeters to about 30 mm and range in length up to several hundred meters (Boling and Carpenter, 1978; Carpenter and Boling, 1980). No strike-slip movement has been observed, and dip-slip movement has been observed at only a few fissures. Fissures commonly erode into fissure gullies (Laney and others, 1978) of a meter or more in width and as much as 15 m in depth. One fissure system near Picacho, Arizona, is 15 km long and has 0.3 to 0.6 m of vertical offset in many places. At one U.S. Geological Survey study site on that fissure, horizontal opening of the fissure was 15 mm, and vertical offset was about 21 mm from June 1980 to June 1983.

In some places in alluvial basins in Arizona, it is difficult to distinguish subsidence and fissuring caused by natural aquifer drainage from induced subsidence and fissuring and to determine which pumping caused which subsidence or fissuring. The first known fissure occurred in 1927 near the town of Picacho prior to major pumping and ground-water-level decline in the basin (Leonard, 1929). Some fissures are associated with natural dessication above the water table (Neal and others, 1968). In addition, some alluvial basins have indications of preconsolidation stress (Holzer, 1981; M. C. Carpenter, unpublished data, 1984) which may be due in part to natural ground-water drainage followed by recovery in the geologic past prior to major pumping in the basins. Although certain measurements of horizontal strain, fissure movement, and subsidence can be correlated with pumping cycles of particular wells, several factors limit the ability to assign physical responsibility for damages. Among these are the commonly elastic or recoverable nature of short-term effects due to pumping of a single well or small well field; short-term noise effects on measurements of temperature, barometric pressure, and earth tides; long-term effects of regional drainage, fluctuations in recharge, and seasonal water-level decline and recovery; and various hydrologie effects such as boundaries and heterogeneities.

Several types of damage occur due to subsidence and fissuring. Damages from subsidence itself are generally due to submergence, as when shore lines sink in Houston-Galveston, Texas; Wilmington, California; Venice, Italy; and Tokyo, Japan. In Arizona, damages from subsidence itself include well-casing failures, and erosion and deposition due to changes in base levels of streams. Differential subsidence causes damage by changing or reversing gradients of canals, irrigation ditches, sewers, and streams. Costly measures have been taken in northeast Phoenix to minimize accumu­lation of explosive gas and maintain flow in sewers (Harmon, 1982). Fissuring increases the potential damage; and when vertical offset or shear occurs with or without fissuring, potential damage increases significantly. Buildings, petroleum-product pipelines, sewers, roads, and railroads can be damaged. In the Houston-Galveston area in Texas, localized differential subsidence without fissuring along preexisting fault planes has damaged houses, roads, and an airport (Holzer, 1976,

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1984; Neighbors and Thompson, 1984). If pipelines and sewers rupture due to fissuring, aquifers can be quickly, and perhaps irreparably, contaminated from the direct recharge of petroleum products, sewage, etc. Cracks in remote areas may invite unlawful and dangerous dumping of hazardous wastes resulting in aquifer contamination. In the Tucson Basin, an area along the buried Santa Cruz fault has potential for differential subsidence and earth fissuring if water-level declines continue (Davidson, 1973; Anderson and others, 1982). This area coincides with a plume of trichloroethylene contamination in the ground water and vadose zone (Kreamer, 1983). If a well field is established to withdraw contaminated ground water in the vicinity of the fault, the consequent ground-water-level decline may cause differential subsidence and fissuring. If fissuring or incipient fissuring occurs in this area, the contamination could spread more rapidly in the vadose zone.

Scope

Several seemingly disparate topics merge to form the legal aspects of subsidence caused by ground-water withdrawal. These include the various forms of physical damages, the ground-water doctrines that apply in different jurisdictions, the laws of support, tort laws, restatements of torts, case law, and statutues. The sections on tort laws and the restatements of torts constitute background for the section on the Friendswood case that illustrates the conflicts of ground-water doctrine, laws of support, and torts. Additional sections present statutes that deal with subsidence as well as court tests of these statutes.

Ground-Water Doctrine Ground water in the United States is generally governed by the English rule of capture, the American rule of reasonable use, correlative-rights doctrine, or appropriative-rights doctrine (Tank, 1983). The English rule, observed in Texas and many Midwestern and Eastern states derives from the English case of Acton v. Blundell, (1843) in which a quarry owner was sued by a neighbor because dewatering the quarry dried up the neigh­bor's well. The court held that a landowner has the right to absolute ownership of all the water he can capture which percolates under his land. The injury was termed Damnum absque injuria or injury without damage, indicating that there is no remedy under the law for the injury or damage suffered. Injury sustained can be a dry well, greater lift costs, or even subsidence as in Finley v. Teeter Stone, Inc. (1968) in Maryland. Pumping can be for the sale of water, irrigation, mine or quarry dewatering, etc. The strength of this doctrine is exemplified by courts granting summary judgments and refusing to try cases brought before them for subsidence damages (Friendswood Development Company v. Smith Southwest Industries, Inc., 1978).

The American rule of reasonable use holds in Arizona and several Midwestern and Eastern states. It is a modification of the English percolating-water rule that provides for a case-by-case determination of the reasonable use of water. Wanton waste and malicious use are excluded from reasonable use, as are transport and sale of water in some juris­dictions. Large losses through unlined canals, irrigation tail water, and inefficient irrigation practices, however, are usually considered to be reasonable use.

California adheres to the correlative-rights doctrine, which is an application of riparian law to ground water (Steelhammer and Garland, 1970). Landowners over a common aquifer are considered joint tenants

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entitled to a proportionate share of the ground water for beneficial use on overlying lands. Excess water not needed by overlying landowners can be appropriated for use elsewhere. In times of shortage, overlying landowners take reduced fair and proportionate shares. In addition, lowering ground water levels is considered unreasonable and can be enjoined even in the absence of injury (City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, 1949).

Most western States including New Mexico adhere to the doctrine of prior appropriation for ground water. This doctrine holds "first in time, first in right." The system deals with water shortages on the basis of seniority and is commonly administered by the State Engineer (Tank, 1983).

Avulsive and Non-Avulsive Subsidence In coastal areas or along shorelines of lakes, subsidence may cause property lines to change if the lines are determined by water boundaries. If the water boundary changes rapidly enough to be perceptible, the change is called avulsive. If the change is imperceptible, it is non-avulsive. If land is gained or new land is created, it is termed accretion. If land is lost, it is lost by erosion or submergence. Submergence occurs by sub­sidence if the land sinks or by inundation if the water level rises. If a water boundary changes as a result of avulsive subsidence, there is no corresponding change in property ownership to coincide with the new water boundary unless the prior owner fails to reclaim the land. In the case of a non-avulsive subsidence, ownership of the submerged land goes to the State, Federal, or municipal government that owns the body of water; but, except in Texas, the land is determinable in favor of the prior owner if he restores it in a resonable time (Davis, 1976).

Laws of Support Damages caused by subsidence can be recovered through the civil courts under common law dealing with lateral or subjacent support (Casner, 1977). In general, one who causes a loss of lateral support is absolutely liable, even in the absence of negligence or malice, for damages to the land in an unimproved state. In Texas, an owner has the right to lateral support, injunctive relief against its loss, or an award of damages, irrespective of negligence (Steelhammer and Garland, 1970).

Doctrines regarding loss of subjacent support are more complicated than those dealing with lateral support. In some jurisdictions, the common law of reasonable use or correlative rights applies, and the circumstances of each case are weighed. In Texas, there is no recovery if the removed resource was water but there can be recovery if the removed resource was coal. Further, in some cases involving mineral resources, one who removed subjacent support was held absolutely liable for damages to the land in its natural state. In other cases involving mineral resources, there was no recovery by the surface owner where subsidence was a natural and inevitable result of mining by the only known commercial method (Steelhammer and Garland, 1970).

Recovery for damages to structures is obtained under negligence in civil cases. One factor affecting recovery is whether the weight of the structure contributed to the failure of the land surface. The issue of recovery for damages to structures is further clouded by the fact that, in some cases, builders have at their own expense had to provide shoring of adjacent land-owners' buildings. Some ordinances and statutes exonerate a builder if he notifies his neighbor and is not negligent (Casner, 1977). Other statutes allow recovery depending on the depth of the excavation.

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Some case law regarding subsidence comes from ground-water law, and recovery depends on the jurisdiction. If the English percolating-water rule applies, there is no compensation if the produced water is clear. If the water is muddy or contains sand, there may be compensation because solid material is withdrawn (Steelhammer and Garland, 1970).

Tort Laws A tort is a wrongful act, in the absence of a contract, that results in damage or injury. The major torts are nuisance, trespass, and negligence. A nuisance is a wrong resulting from unreasonable, unwarrantable, or unlawful use by a person of his own property. A nuisance may be private or public depending on whether it affects a definite or indefinite number of persons in a community. Nuisance generally requires an unlawful act but in some cases nuisance per accidens, nuisance in fact, is recognized in the absence of an unlawful act. A court will consider the act itself, the place, and the circumstances, balancing equities between property owners each asserting his rights to use his own land, in determining whether a given act constitutes a nuisance. The defense that an individual purchased property with the knowledge of the existence of a nuisance, termed coming to a nuisance, is not usually sufficient to prevent abatement or recovery of damages (Sullivan, 1976).

Trespass is an invasion of another's rights as the result of an unlawful act.-" Trespass may be to personal property, to the person, or to realty. Trespass to realty includes injury to or interferences with another's possessions below ground (Sullivan, 1976). Trespass may be invoked along with subjacent support in subsidence cases.

Negligence is the failure to observe or perform a legal duty owed another that results in injury to the other. The act may be one of either omission or commission. For a defendant to be held liable under negligence, his act must be the proximate cause of the injury. In addition, the defendant must be shown to have departed from reasonable and prudent behavior under the circumstances. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitor, the thing speaks for itself, applies when the plaintiff can produce sufficient facts to warrant an inference of negligence. For this, the plaintiff must show that the instrumentality which caused the injury was under the exclusive control of the defendant and that, under ordinary circumstances, no injury would have occurred if the defendant had used proper care. Defenses against negligence include contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff and assumption of risk (Sullivan, 1976). Commonly, subsidence cases are brought under nuisance and negligence.

Restatements of Torts The American Law Institute is an advisory organization that published a Restatement of Torts in 1939 and a Restatement (Second) of Torts in 1969, each of which included positions on subsidence. Each of these restate­ments contained recommendations for wording and intent of court decisions and new statutes. Although the restatements are not themselves law, they have influenced court decisions and the development of statutes. Furthermore, the institute's position on subsidence has reversed. In 1939 the institute stated: "To the extent that a person is not liable for withdrawing subterranean waters from the land of another, he is not liable for a subsidence of the other's land which is caused by the withdrawal." In 1969, the Institute recommended instead: "One who is privileged to withdraw subterranean water, oil, minerals or other substances from under the land of another is not for that reason

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privileged to cause a subsidence of the other's land by such withdrawal." (American Law Institute, 1939, 1969). The Institute's changed position is significant in that it suggests the legal duty to refrain from causing subsidence.

Friendswood Case In Friendswood Development Co. v. Smith-Southwest Industries, Inc., (1978), Smith-Southwest Industries and others along the west shore of Galveston Bay brought a class action in 1973 against Friendswood Development Co. and its owner Exxon Corp., alleging that defendants' pumping for the sale of ground water caused severe subsidence of plaintiffs' lands. Friendswood joined as third party defendants other parties pumping ground water in the area. The suit was brought under laws of support, negligence, and nuisance in fact. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants' wells were too closely spaced and too near the common boundary between plaintiffs' and defendants' lands. They also alleged that defend­ants pumped excessive quantities with foreknowledge from engineering reports that such pumping would cause subsidence and flooding of plain­tiffs' lands. Defendants contended that subsidence was a problem in the area before they started pumping and that pumping from other wells in the area contributed to the subsidence. The trial court granted a summary judgment for the defendants, citing Acton v. Blundell (1843) and the doctrine Damnum absque injuria. The appellate court reversed and remanded, holding that a cause of action existed in nuisance and negli­gence. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, affirming the summary judgment of the trial court (Friendswood, 1978; Teutsch, 1979).

In its holding, the Texas Supreme Court applied the law to this case as it was at the time of the suit and as it was from 1964 to 1971 when most of Friendswood's wells were drilled. The court cited the Restatement (Second) of Torts ( American Law Institute, 1969) and a subsidence amend­ment in the General and Special Laws of the State of Texas (1973) as too late to affect this case. The court held, however, that henceforth negli­gence would be added to malice and willful waste as a cause of action. Regarding the legislation creating Underground Water Conservation Districts and the Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District, the court stated: "Providing policy and regulatory procedures in this field is a legislative function. It is well that the Legislature has assumed its proper role, because our courts are not equipped to regulate ground water uses and subsidence on a suit-by-suit basis," (Friendswood, 1978).

California and Texas Legislation and District Management Several authors have indicated the need for effective statutes to control or prevent subsidence (Compton, 1961; Davis, 1976; Singer, 1976; Morris, 1980; and Kopper and Findlayson, 1981). It is more significant that courts have expressed the need as well (Houston and Texas Central Railroad v. East, 1904; Finley v. Teeter Stone, Inc., 1968; Friendswood 1978).

Approaches to subsidence management in California include a subsid­ence statute, water districts, and a governor's commission. The Anti-Subsidence Act of 1958', which was designed to maximize production of oil and gas fields, provides for a cause of action only when there is a direct violation of an order or decision of the state oil and gas supervisor (Statutes-California, 1958). The act provides for liability for withdrawal of subjacent support only in case of negligence. It does, however, provide a penalty of $1,000 per day per act of violation

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(Compton, 1961). The Orange County Water District levies a pump tax on all ground-water pumping, imports water for uses including artificial recharge, and requires periodic reports of ground-water production. San Gabriel Valley uses a charge on pumping more than an adjudicated share of safe yield, has a recharge program, and controls ground-water storage in the basin. The Governor's Commission to Review California's Water Rights Law has recommended legislation that would give a State board the power to select an appropriate local agency to manage a ground-water basin or to form a ground-water management district. The management authority could regulate storage and use, buy, sell, and exchange water rights, and limit pumping in response to such adverse effects as long-term overdraft and subsidence. Farming interests have hindered the legislation because they perceive it as fostering bureaucracy and leading to more expensive water (Kopper and Findlayson, 1981).

Texas has used a combination of minor subsidence provisions in the Texas Water Code with a special act creating a subsidence district in an attempt to bring subsidence under control (General Laws-Texas, 1973, 1975). The Texas Legislature, in 1949, provided for the creation of Underground Water Conservation Districts (UWCD's) for "...conservation, preservation, protection, recharging, and prevention of waste of underground water...," while confirming private ownership of ground water (General Laws-Texas, 1949). This chapter was amended "To prevent drawdown, and to control subsidence and to prevent waste, 'the district may provide for the spacing of water wells and may regulate the production of wells,'" (General Laws-Texas, 1949, p. 560; Tyler, 1976). Although they have the authority, none of eight UWCD's has ever regulated pumping (Teutsch, 1979). In 1975, the Texas Legislature passed the Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District Act that empowered the District to space wells, regulate pumping, meter wells, require annual reports of pumping, and collect permit fees not to exceed "'110 percent of the highest rate charged by the city of Houston for surface water to its customers,'" (General Laws-Texas 1975; Teutsch, 1979). The District is governed by a 15-member board appointed by mayors and commissioner's courts in the 2 counties. Agricultural and industrial interests are each assured at least one representative on the board. Stiff penalties and injunctive relief are provided for violations of the act or rules of the District. Agricultural interests were able to exclude an ad valorem tax from the act, decreasing its effectiveness in internalizing costs and providing incentives for switching to surface water. In addition, a subsequent ammendment limited the permit fee for agricultural users to a maximum of 70 percent of that for other users (General Laws-Texas 1977; Teutsch, 1979). The District has used its power to reduce pumping and has required some cities and industries to switch to surface water. A decrease in pumping by nearly 20 percent has caused water levels to stabilize in many areas with a consequent decrease in subsidence rates. The District has been challenged and upheld in the courts (Beckendorff v. Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District, 1978).

1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act The 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act was based upon recommendations of the twenty-five member Ground Water Management Study Commission which included representatives from cities and towns, mining, agriculture, Indian communities, and electric utilities (Session Laws-Arizona, 1980). The act mentions subsidence only three times (§45-402, §45-569, §45-603),

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but because the act is designed to establish safe yield in ground-water basins, measures that will control ground-water-level declines will control subsidence.

The act provides for Active Management Areas (AMA's) and Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas (INA's) administered by regional offices of the newly formed Department of Water Resources. Four initial AMA's cover Tucson, Phoenix, Prescott, and Pinal County (§45-411A). These four areas contain more than 80 percent of the State's population and account for about 70 percent of the State's ground-water overdraft (J. W. Johnson, attorney, written commun., 1981). The State director may designate subsequent AMA's, after public hearings and with due process, if it is determined that, among other reasons, land subsidence or fissuring is endangering property or potential ground water storage capacity, (§44-412). The director may designate subsequent INA's if "There is insufficient ground water to provide a reasonably safe supply for irrigation of the cultivated lands in the area at the current rate of withdrawal," and "...establish­ment of an active management area...is not necessary," (§45-432). There are provisions for local designations of AMA's and INA's (§45-415, §44-433) and conversion from INA's to AMA's (§45-439).

The target date for safe yield in the Tucson, Phoenix, and Prescott AMA's is on or before January 1, 2025. The goal in the Pinal AMA is to develop non-irrigation uses while preserving existing agriculture as long as feasible. Five management periods: 1980-1990, 1990-2000, 2000-2010, 2010-2020, and 2020-2025 are to be used to implement increasingly strin­gent conservation measures. Conservation programs for non-irrigation uses of ground water include non-specific reductions in per capita use for municipalities. For industries, the program requires the use of "...the latest commercially available conservation technology consistent with reasonable economic return," (§45-564). Conservation for irrigated agriculture will be achieved by reductions in ground-water allotment, termed irrigation-water duty, based on the necessary quantity of water needed to irrigate the crops historically grown in the farm unit, assuming "...the maximum conservation consistent with prudent long-term farm management practices within areas of similar farming conditions, con­sidering the time required to amortize conservation investments and financial costs," (§45-565). In the third management period "...the director may adjust the highest twenty-five percent of the water duties within the sub-basin to more clearly reflect the average of the middle fifty percent of the water duties within the sub-basin," (§45-566). Later management periods include programs for augmenting water supplies includ­ing incentives for artificial recharge (§45-565) and for purchase and retirement of grandfathered water rights (§45-567).

The act provides for levying and collection of a fee between $0.50 and $1.00 per acre-foot (1,233 m3) of ground water pumped per year for administration and enforcement of the act, to as much as $2.00 per acre-foot per year for augmentation of the water supply of an AMA, and, no earlier than January 1, 2006, as much as $2.00 per acre-foot per year for purchase and retirement of grandfathered rights (§45-611).

Violators of the act are subject to cease and desist orders issued by the director, preliminary or permanent injunctions from the superior court, civil penalties, and criminal penalties. Civil penalties have a maximum of "Ten thousand dollars per day of violation directly related to illegal withdrawal, use, or transportation of ground water," and a maximum of $100 per day for other violations (§45-635). Class 6 felonies include falsifying or tampering with a measuring device and knowingly withdrawing

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1,000 acre-feet or more of ground water in violation of the act. Illegal withdrawals of smaller quantities are misdemeanor offenses (§A5-636).

The act has been challenged and upheld in the courts (Clifton N. Cherry v. Wesley E. Steiner, 1982). In Cherry v. Steiner, plaintiffs, who reside in the Prescott AMA, challenged in the United States District Court that the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Code violates due process and equal pro­tection under the United States Constitution. The trial court granted summary judgement to the defendants. The United States Supreme Court refused without comment to hear the case. An important aspect of the court tests of the act is its non-severability: "If any portion of this act is finally adjudicated invalid, the entire act shall be null and void," (§45-401). This non-severability was included in the act to protect agricultural, municipal, and mining interests, all of which had made concessions to allow passage of the bill. In addition to court challenges of the statute, suits based on the statute are being brought (Cortaro Water Users' Association v. Wesley E. Steiner, City of Tucson, 1983). In this case, a partial summary judgement was granted for the plaintiffs who appealed from the Department of Water Resources' decision to issue drilling permits to the City of Tucson outside its service area.

Arizona Subsidence Monitoring Plan The National Geodetic Survey, with advice from an interagency Land Subsidence Committee, has submitted a subsidence monitoring plan to the Governor of Arizona. The plan summarizes known subsidence in the State and recognizes hazards for canals, pipelines, wells, etc. caused by sub­sidence, differential subsidence, and earth fissures. The objectives of the plan are: "Documentation of the location and magnitude of existing subsidence and subsidence-induced earth fissures. Development of procedures for estimating future subsidence as a function of water level decline and defining probable areas of future fissure development." The plan proposes a central facility at a State agency for compilation and organization of leveling, compaction, gravity and other geophysical, and stratigraphie information. There would be coordinated analysis of existing data to produce initial estimates of future subsidence and earth-fissure development and identify additional observation requirements. Other provisions include: "An initial observation program designed to obtain a limited amount of additional leveling data, gravity observations, compaction measurements, and horizontal strain determinations. A cooperative effort between State and Federal agencies to evaluate new measurement technologies which offer the potential of being faster and more cost effective than current methods of subsidence monitoring." Also included are proposals for directions in research, some initial monitoring plans, and an advisory committee to oversee the formation of the central data facility and provide continuing guidance (Strange, 1983).

Summary In Texas, California, and Arizona, mining of ground water has caused extensive subsidence. Damages in Texas are largely due to reactivation of faults and submergence. In Arizona, damages are mostly due to differ­ential subsidence and fissuring. The legal approaches to abating subsid­ence vary in the different States. Recent legal remedies include the Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District Act of 1975, the landmark Friendswood decision of 1978, which moderated the English rule of capture

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in Texas, conservation measures by California water districts, and minor provisions of the 1980 Arizona Ground Water Management Act. A governor's commission has produced a subsidence monitoring plan for Arizona.

Discussion The effort to control subsidence and subsidence related damages is in its infancy. The effectiveness of measures to prevent or correct damages will become increasingly important as damages become more acute. Effective long-range planning is needed to arrive at corrective measures that equitably distribute risks and costs. In spite of agricultural opposition to internalization of costs, it appears that, in Texas, subsidence is beginning to be controlled. In Arizona, the State subsidence-monitoring plan deals only in a limited way with horizontal deformation and stress-strain modeling, and it does not address abatement or control of subsidence. However, the State agency that will probably administer the subsidence plan is the Department of Water Resources, which administers the Ground Water Management Act. A hypothetical case illustrates the potential damages. Annual water level declines in,subsiding basins in Arizona range from less than 1 to more than 3 m yr . If safe yield is not achieved until the year 2025 and the mean rate of water-level decline is halved in each of the management periods, then total expected ground-water-level decline might range from 20 to 60 m. Assuming a virgin specific compaction of 0.02 m of subsidence per meter of ground-water-level decline (Anderson and others, 1982; M. C. Carpenter, unpublished data, 1984), 0.4 to 1.1 m of subsidence could occur. Differential subsidence and earth fissures may form over shallow buried structures as a result of such subsidence.

Acknowledgments We thank Stanley N. Davis and Thomas Maddock III, Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona; and Jacque Emel, Arizona Department of Water Resources, for thoughtful reviews. We also thank Carlena Smith for superlative manuscript preparation.

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Restatement of the Law Second Torts, Tentative Draft No. 15, Ch. 39 Topic 1, §818, p. 1-5.

Anderson, S.R., Schumann, H. H., and Wallace, B. L., 1982, Progress Report on Measurement of Aquifer Compaction in the Tucson Basin: Annual Static Water Level Basic Data Report Tucson Basin and Avra Valley Pima County, Arizona, 32 p.

Beckendorff v. Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District, 1978, 558 SW 2d 75, 77, 78; 563 SW 2d 239.

Boling, J. K., Jr., and Carpenter, M. C , 1978, Small Scale Movements of Earth Fissures in South-Central Arizona: Geol. Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, v. 10, no. 3, p. 97.

Carpenter, M. C , and Boling, J. K., Jr., 1980, Character of Earth Fissure Movement in South-Central Arizona: Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science, v. 15, p. 49.

Casner, A. J., 1977, Supplement to American Law of Property: Little, Brown, Boston, 1404 p.

City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra, 1949, 33 CAL 2nd 908, 207 P 2nd 17.

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Clifton N. Cherry v. Wesley E. Steiner, 1982, United States District Court for the District of Arizona, No. CIV 81-719 PHX CAM, Opinion and Order 30 p.

Compton, R. L. , 1961, The Right to the Subjacent Support of Oil and Gas: California Law Review, v. 49, p. 354-367.

Cortaro Water Users' Association v. Wesley E. Steiner, 1983, Maricopa County, State of Arizona Superior Court Decision 2 p.

Davidson, E. S. , 1973, Geohydrology and Water Resources of the Tucson Basin, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 1939-E, p. E54.

Davis, L. E., 1976, Subsidence: Settling Down Within the Laws of Accretion, Reliction, Erosion, and Submergence: Baylor Law Review, v. 28, p. 319-337.

Finley v. Teeter Stone Inc., 1968, 251 Md 428, 248 A 2nd 106. Friendswood Development Company v. Smith-Southwest Industries, Inc., 1978,

546 SW 2d 890, 576 SW 2d 21. General and Special Laws of the State of Texas, 1949, Underground Water

Conservation Districts—Organization-Powers: Ch. 306, p. 559-564. General and Special Laws of the State of Texas, 1973, Water Districts—

Underground Conservation-Creation-Powers and Duties: Ch. 598, Sec. 52.021, p. 1641.

General and Special Laws of the State of Texas, 1975, Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District: Ch. 284, p. 672-684.

General and Special Laws of the State of Texas, 1977, Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District—Reduction in Ground water Withdrawal: Ch. 557, p. 1390-1391.

Harmon, David B., 1982, Subsidence in Northeast Phoenix: Fieldnotes From the Arizona Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology, v. 12, no. 3, p. 10-11.

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