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Western States Water Council Legal Committee Seattle, Washington July 14, 2005 . but in January 2003 all of the parties agreed to mediate the process. That mediation continues with a lot of people sitting at the table. One of the issues they are considering is an interstate compact. In 1971, both the California and Nevada legislatures approved an interstate compact.on the Truckee River and parts of the Walker River, generally in the same area, but Congress never ratified that compact. STATE GENERAL ADJUDICATIONS Jack Stults from Montana, led off a panel discussion on state general adjudications. He described the process and status of adjudications in Montana. After beginning a statewide adjudication, some 220,000 claims were filed. These were divided up into 85 basins, and the process began statewide. A three-prong approach was established. The s~ate water court has as its only responsibility, the adjudication of state waters. Secondly, the state established the Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission, to negotiate settlements with federal and tribal interests. The adjudication was suspended as to these claims pending the outcome of these negotiations. The third prong of our approach consists of the efforts of the Water Resources Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to provide technical support to the water court by examining aU water right claims and providing a report to the court on issues that the division thinks the court should address. This is an objective process and individual claimants are given notice of the report and have the opportunity to protest any claims from neighboring interests. However, it is intended to be a user-friendly process where people can participate . without legal counsel. It has now been over twenty years since all the claims were filed. Because of budget constraints, including low filing fees, the adjudication slowed, as is the case in several other states. This means that, while there are a number of streams throughout the state where rights can be enforced pursuant to historical decrees, for the majority ofthe state, there is no decree, thus stalling the adjudication putting greater stress on the system with respect to the administration of water rights in priority. As a result, over the past few years there has been an effort to reeducate the public and within the legislature to reinvigorate the process. A new law was passed establishing a new fee structure for all water rights in the state, which has enabled us to increase substantially the staff dedicated to examining the claims. The goal is to complete the statewide adjudication within the next ten years. , Despite the controversy associated with the imposition of fees, the initiative had remarkable success, and so things are moving forward. There are still many issues to address, however. The Reserved Rights Commission has been remarkably successful in their work, in that they have completed compacts with five of the seven tribes in the state. Many non-tribal federal claims have also been settled through the work of the Commission. This means that a primary purpose of these adjudications, the quantification offederal rights, has been successfully pursued. But there are still 50,000 non-federal claims to examine, but we feel we have turned the corner in the last few years, so that we are enforcing some of our decrees. A phased decree system is in effect, whereby once we issue our report, and once the objections are addressed, enforcement may begin. This is occurring in a number of basins. Jack also described the work of the Advisory Committee to the water judge, which is broad-based and has representation from various state agencies. They are committed to moving forward. In retrospect, Jack felt it was probably not the right decision to do the entire state as one comprehensive . entity. It would have been more effective to have divided the work up. On the other hand, the creation 4