WSP12185

• File Number: 8067
• Description: Section D General Federal Issues/Policies-Section 7 Consultations
• Date: 6/1/1979
• Title: Federal Water Rights 1973-83-Report of Federal Task Force on Non-Indian Reserved Rights
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

001982

Given this fact, the magnItude of the task set by the President, and

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the tight deadline under whIch we operated, we directed that the Inventory

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and other efforts concentrate on the seventeen Western States. Most

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If not al I of the recommendations wll I, however, be applicable to other

states as we II .

E. State and Federal Perspectives on This Issue

The controversy surrounding state-federal relations over water rights

has several sources. At the risk of oversimplifying, the states' perspec-

tlve on this Issue springs mainly from the following consIderations.

States have regarded the federal reserved right as an affront to what some

states argue Is state "ownership" of the water resources within the states'

boundaries, and to state legal systems established to administer and control

the use of that water. Because the reserved rIght remains viable even though

no water Is put to actual use, It can hamper development of the water re-

sources of the state. When water subject to a reserved right Is put to
actual use, It could Impair the holders of water rIghts perfected under

state law after the date of the federal reservation, without the Federal

Government being obligated to compensate those holders.~/ Finally, states
resist adjudicatIon of federal reserved rIghts In federal court, fInding

the division of jurisdictIon between state and federal courts offensive,

12/ Professor Frank Trelease, a noted authority on water law, recently
stated that he knows of no case where assertion of a federal reserved right
has destroyed any private vested rights to water. See Trelease, "Federal
Reserved WaTer Rights Since the PLLRC," 54 Denver L. J. 473 (1977>'
The Task Force concurs In that assessment.

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