A city may, in contracting for its own wa ter supply, contract that the company shall furnish water free to churches, etc.; Inde pendent School Dist. v. Light Co., 131 Ia. 14, 107 N. W. 944, 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 859.
See WATER RENTS ; RATES.
This term is applied to the flow or movement of the water in rivers, creeks, and other streams.
A water-course is a stream of water flow ing in a definite channel, having a bed and sides or banks and discharging itself into some other stream or body of water. Hutch inson v. Ditch Co., 16 Idaho 484, 101 Pac. 1059, 133 Am. St. Rep. 125. The flow need not be constant, but must be more than mere surface drainage occasioned by extraordinary causes ; there must be substantial indica tions of the existence of a stream which is ordinarily a moving body of water. Id.; Barnes v. Sabron, 10 Nev. 217.
There must be a supply which is permanent in the sense that similar conditions will al ways produce a flow of water in the same channel, and that the conditions recur with some degree of regularity, so that they es tablish and maintain for considerable periods of time a running stream ; Mann v. Mining Co., 49 App. Div. 454, 63 N. Y. Supp. 752.
Whenever surface water flows in one con tinuous well marked channel it becomes a water-course, if this flow becomes regular each season ; Borman v. Blackmon, 60 Or. 304, 118 Pac. 848; or if the course has rea sonable limits as to width ; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Board of Sup'rs, 182 Fed. 291, 104 C. C. A. 573, 31 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1117.
The essential characteristics of a water course are a channel consisting of a well defined bed and banks, and a current of water ; Lessard v. Stram, 62 Wis. 112, 22 N. W. 284, 51 Am. Rep. 715 ; Razzo v. Varni, 81 Cal. 289, 22 Pac. 848; Barnes v. Sabron, 10 Nev. 217 ; Board of Com'rs of Shelby County v. Castetter, 7 Ind. App. 309, 33 N. E. 986, 34 N. E. 687.
The rule is that in order to have a water course there must be a channel ; it has even been held that where there was a chantel there was a water-course, although it car ried no water except in times of heavy rains and of melting snows, thus forming what is called a torrential stream ; York v. David son, 39 Or. 81, 95 Pac. 819. It does not
include surface water conveyed from a high er to a lower level for limited periods during the melting of snow, or during or soon after the fall of rain, through hollows or ravines, which at other times are dry ; Hoyt v. Hud son, 27 Wisc. 656, 9 Am. Rep. 473.
Where the water flows merely over the low land, a bog or a slough, it is not a water course ; Chicago, K.. & W. R. Co. v. Morrow, 42 Kan. 339, 22 Pac. 413 ; nor where it merely oozes from a spring through soft spongy ground ; ;Meyer v. Power Co., 8 Wash. 144, 35 Pac. 601.
The bed, which is a definite and commonly a permanent channel, is the characteristic which distinguishes the water of a river from mere surface drainage flowing without definite course or certain limits, and from water percolating through the strata of the earth. The banks of a water-course are the elevations which confine the waters to their natural channel when they rise; Howard v. Ingersoll, 13 How. (U. S.) 381, 14 L. Ed: 189 ; People v. Madison County, 125 Ill. 9, 17 N. E. 147. The water of a water-course must have a current. The flow of the water must usually be in one direction ; 1 B. & Ad. 289 ; and by a regular channel having both a source and a mouth ; Chamberlain v. Hem ingway, 63 Conn. 1, 27 Atl. 239, 22 L. R. A. 45, 38 Am. St. Rep. 330.
The controlling distinction between a water course and a pond or lake is that in the former case the water has a natural motion or a current, while in the latter the water is, in its natural state, substantially at rest. And this is so independently of the size of the one or of the other ; Ne-pee-nauk Club v. Wilson, 96 Wis. 290, 71 N. W. 661. If the current continues, the mere fact that the stream spreads out does not change its character as a water-course ; Macomber v. Godfrey, 108 Mass. 219, 11 Am. Rep. 349. A hollow or ravine without a permanent flow of water is not a water-course ; Los Angeles C. Ass'n v. Los Angeles, 103 Cal. 461, 37 Pac. 375 ; neither is a swale or swamp or bog ; Sanquinetti v. Pock, 136 Cal. 466, 69 Pac. 98, 89 Am. St. Rep. 169 ; Hough v. Porter, 51 Or. 318, 95 Pac. 732, 98 Pac. 1083, 102 Pac. 728.