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A. Through the McCarran Amendment, Congress Has Expressed its Policy Favoring <br />Adjudication of Federal and Non - federal Water Rights in Unitary State Court Proceedings <br />Prior to 1952, whatever water rights the United States claimed were largely unknown and <br />unknowable. The United States' sovereign immunity led to <br />[A] situation in which the federal sovereign claims water rights which are nowhere <br />formally listed, which are not the subject of any decree or permit and which, <br />therefore, are etheric in large part to the person who has reason to know and evaluate <br />the extent of his priorities to the use of water. To have these federal rights in a state <br />of uncorrelated mystery is frustrating and completely contrary to orderly procedure- - <br />and this is equally true from the standpoint of the United States as well as Colorado <br />and its citizenry. <br />United States v. District Court In and For Eagle County, 458 P.2d 760, 772 (Colo. 1969) ( "Eagle <br />County P'). Congress recognized that <br />by reason of the interlocking of adjudicated rights on any stream system, any order <br />or action affecting one right affects all such rights. Accordingly all water users on <br />a stream, in practically every case, are interested and necessary parties to any court <br />proceedings. <br />Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 811 (1976), quoting S. Rep. No. 755, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess., 4 -5 (1952); <br />see also Eagle County I, 458 P.2d at 764 -65, (quoting same legislative history). Thus Congress <br />passed the McCarran Amendment, 43 U.S.C. § 666, "for the very purpose of correcting this situation <br />and the evils growing out of such immunity." Eagle County I, 458 P.2d at 765. <br />5 <br />