George C. Grover; Legal Expert on Water Rights

George C. Grover, legal expert on water rights who served as president of the California Public Utilities Commission, has died. He was 74.

Grover, who also had been a Riverside County Superior Court judge, died Wednesday at his home in Riverside.

As a lawyer, Grover successfully represented Los Angeles in one of its historic water rights cases, a suit against the city of San Fernando. In 1975, he won a state Supreme Court ruling that gave Los Angeles the rights to nearly all the water flowing out of the San Fernando Valley.

Grover’s expertise on water rights stemmed from his first job as a lawyer when he served as a deputy to then California Atty. Gen. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. Assigned to work on water cases, Grover helped local landowners by winning the reversal of a trial court ruling that gave the federal government all available water near Camp Pendleton.

The case continued for about 15 years, long after Grover had gone on to other pursuits. But when Brown became governor, he remembered Grover’s expertise on the state’s delicate legal minuets over water. In 1961, Brown named Grover to the state Public Utilities Commission, where he served for six years and was president from 1962 to 1963.

“He told me, ‘Sometimes I think my phone bills are pretty high, but you do it the way you think is right,’ ” Grover later recalled about Brown’s instructions.

In 1976, the governor’s son, Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., appointed Grover to a newly created position on the Riverside bench, where Grover remained until his retirement in 1990.

Born in Aspen, Colo., Grover grew up in Glendale and received a debating scholarship to USC. It was debate that persuaded him to become a lawyer. He earned his law degree at USC, where he was editor of the law review.

After his work as a law clerk and deputy attorney general, Grover set up his private practice specializing in water law in Corona.

Grover is survived by his wife, Leonie; his father, Charles; his daughter, Monterey County Deputy County Counsel Adrienne Grover; and a sister, Barbara Grover.

Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at First Congregational Church in Riverside.