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.~ ,.. 1-: Q .1.U~v in Friends of the Earth v. Armstrong Le., that the proviso with respect to Rainbow Bridge National Monument contained in Section 1 of the Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956 had been repealed by subsequent Congressional action. Central Utah Project Lawsuit The Board's 1975 Annual Report described a lawsuit in which thirteen individual members of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation sought to enjoin further construction on the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project. The Tribal Council was not in favor of the lawsuit and had adopted a resolution supporting the 1965 agreement which provided for deferral of irrigation on 15,242 acres of irrigable land on the Reservation until development of the ultimate phase of the Central Utah Photoelectronic composition by CAUFORNIA OffiCE OF' STATE PRlm1NC vc 738W-004 4-TT 1M LOA Project or 2005, whichever occurs first. The dissident tribal members claimed that further construction on the Project would have a detrimental effect on tribal water rights. In August 1976, a federal judge for the United States District Court for Utah ruled that the individual tribal members had no legal standing to challenge a water deferral agreement executed by the Tribe in order to enable construction of the Project, and the action was dismissed. United States v. Akin The Board's 1975 Annual Report described a State of Colorado water rights case, United States v. Akin, in which Colorado is involved in several lawsuits concerning claims of the United States for reserved water rights. Because the issues involved in this case also affect California, the California Attorney General joined Colorado in the suit as amicus curiae. Early in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled substantially in favor of the State of Colorado, in that Indian water rights can be adjudicated in State Courts under the McCarran Amendment. The Court also held that federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction to adjudicate federal water rights claims. Yuma Indian Reservation The issue of whether the Department of the Interior wouid return to the Quechan Tribe of the Yuma Indian Reservation by Secretarial Order about 32,000 acr~s Colorado River Board of California 107 S. Broadway Rm. 8103 Los Angeles, California 90012 of land which the tribe had previously transferred to the United States was continued during 1976. On January 6,,1976, the Board's Chief Engineer attended a meeting in Washington, D.C., with Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe and others to discuss California's reasons why this land transfer should be denied. A similar meeting between the Secretary and representatives of the Quechan Tribe was held at a later date. By letter, dated February 2, 1976, Solicitor H. Gregory Austin informed the Quechan Tribe of his decision not to disturb the Opinion written by Solicitor Margold in 1936. Solicitor Margold concluded that the lands claimed by the Tribe were ceded to the United States by the Treaty of 1893, and the Tribe's relinquishment of those lands was effective upon ratification of the Treaty by Congress in 1894. In early 1977, Solicitor Austin issued a neW Solicitor's Opinion, M-36886, which reaffirmed the Margold Opinion.