San Gabriel V. C. Club v. Los Angeles

In San Gabriel V. C. Club v. Los Angeles (1920) 182 Cal. 392, the court explained that the channel at issue "did not exist as a definite watercourse, at least as far as the plaintiff's land, before the region was settled up, but was created as the result of settlement. Nevertheless it is natural in the sense that it was originally made by the waters themselves, and not by man, although it is possible that except for the acts of man the waters would not have been kept together so as to make a channel. In any event, it has now existed for such a length of time as the channel for the natural drainage of the watershed tributary to it, that the manner of its creation is not material, and it has all the attributes of a water channel wholly natural in origin." (San Gabriel, supra, 182 Cal. at p. 397.)