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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Western States Water Council <br />Legal Committee <br /> <br />Boise, Idaho <br />April 21, 2005 <br /> <br />"first in time, first in right" principle of the appropriation doctrine should be reconciled with the goal, also <br />contained in Idaho's water code, to make optimum use of the resource. <br /> <br />SNAKE RIVER SETTLEMENT UPDATE <br /> <br />Norm Semanko described the provisions of the recently approved Snake River Settlement, <br />involving the claims of the Nez Perce Tribe. A settlement was first approved by Congress, and then <br />subsequently by the State Legislature and the Nez Perce Tribe prior to the March 31, 2005 deadline. The <br />matter was now before the court of jurisdiction, where the court will need to resolve outstanding objections <br />to the settlement. In the meantime, however, implementation of provisions of the settlement has begun. <br /> <br />In response to a question, Norm noted that another tribe is challenging the settlement. However, <br />their earlier support of the settlement and other circumstances made it very unlikely that the tribe would <br />prevail. <br /> <br />UPDATE ON ARIZONA WATER SETTLEMENT <br /> <br />Bill Staudenmaier described the status of the Arizona Water Settlement. Congress had approved <br />the settlement. Subsequently, Interior signed an agreement to implement the settlement to the extent it was <br />consistent with the Act approved by Congress. Interior officials, together with officials from the <br />Department of Justice, are now reviewing hundreds of pages of documents for references to the United <br />States and its capacity as trustee. Since enactment, the Arizona legislature had passed laws to regulate <br />ground water consistent with the agreement. There remain pending some major issues. These include a <br />pending lawsuit by individual members of irrigation districts over the authority to relinquish Central <br />Arizona Project water without the approval of individual farmers. The Supreme Court accepted this case <br />about three months ago, but has not acted yet. The final step next year will be to file the agreement in <br />court and to issue a partial decree. <br /> <br />THE PROSPECTS FOR INDIAN WATER SETTLEMENTS <br /> <br />A) Report on March Congressional Briefmg <br /> <br />Shaun McGrath reported on a congressional briefing sponsored by the Ad Hoc Group on Indian <br />Water Rights that was held in March of this year. This represented a continuing effort by the Ad Hoc <br />Group to advise Congress of western support for Indian Water Right Settlements. It has become clear that <br />these settlements will be more difficult, given substantial budgetary constraints. Shaun also described <br />meetings with officials in Interior regarding the importance of finding a mechanism to fund these <br />settlements. <br /> <br />B) Submission by WSWC at Senate Water Conference <br /> <br />Craig Bell reported on his participation at the Water Conference sponsored by the Senate Energy <br />and Natural Resources Committee on April 5. He referred to the consistency among the witnesses <br /> <br />3 <br />