Expert Testimony for the Plaintiffs in the Case that Brought Ohio Ground-Water Law into the 20th Century

Abstract. The 1984 Ohio Supreme Court ruling on Cline v. American Aggregates changed Ohio's ground-water law from an 1861 ruling based on the English Rule of absolute ownership to a doctrine of reasonable use which recognizes that landowners have the privilege to use the water beneath their land but can be held liable to others if their use of ground water causes others unreasonable harm. The Ohio Supreme Court did not define unreasonable harm in the Cline case. As a result, unreasonable harm is being established through case law, the first such case being the relitigation of Cline v. American Aggregates.
Depositions and expert testimony presented during the Cline cases, which represent a group of 56 landowners in a single lawsuit, showed the diverse ways in which the quantity and quality of ground water used for domestic-water supplies were affected by operation of a dewatering system at an aggregate mine. The testimony highlighted the complex interaction between regional hydrodynamics, variations in local hydrogeologic settings, well-construction methods, spatial variations in infiltration and recharge, and vertical leakage with the effects of the regional decline in water levels produced by the dewatering system.