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<br />4 <br /> <br />A tribe may have potential, inchoate claims to enormous amounts of water, but <br /> <br />actually use not a single drop. To get "wet" water in the American West usually <br />requires dams, to capture variable runoff, and ditches and canals to transport the <br />stored water when and where needed. These kinds of engineering works usually <br /> <br />require capital investment that tribes do not have. Thus the ingredients for a political <br /> <br />compromise are present: Indians, politically weak, with a large potential claim and <br /> <br />L.~ <br />~ <br /> <br />without money for water works and other needed economic development; non-Indians, <br /> <br />,:.. <br />,', <br /> <br />politically powerful, using or interested in using the water potentially claimed by the <br /> <br /> <br />Indians; and Congress, politically beholden to non-Indians and capable of <br /> <br /> <br />appropriating money for water projects. <br /> <br />.1 <br /> <br />.~. <br /> <br />It is in this context that "quantification" of Indian Winters claims arises. Quantification <br /> <br />is the official naming of an amount of water that, out of a tribe's total potential <br /> <br /> <br />Winters claim, will constitute the tribe's enforceable water right. Quantification <br /> <br /> <br />conventionally occurs in the course of a negotiated settlement (which must be <br /> <br /> <br />embodied in federal legislation) or litigation. 10 The settlement of Winters claims. <br /> <br /> <br />:d, <br />~,- <br />~f~, <br />'.-'\ <br />b;;' <br /> <br />"'-:, <br /> <br />year, out of a total river flow of 1.2-1.5 million acre-feet. See. e.g., Collins, "Tribes Act <br />Court to Order Regulation," Casper Star-Tribune. July 31, 1990, at A1, col. 5. It has been <br />estimated that unadjudicated claims by Indians could exceed by many times the average <br />annual flows of several of the West's major rivers, including the Klamath, Colorado, <br />Flathead, Salmon, San Juan, and Yuba Rivers. ~ Thorsen, "Negotiated Settlements," <br />~ note 3 at 27-28. <br /> <br />lOSee. e.g., American Indian Lawyer Training Program, Inc., American Indian <br />Resources Institute, Tribal Water Manavement Handbook 17 (1987) and F. Cohen,.SllIlli! <br />note 4 at 599. <br />