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17,000 acre feet of storage water, and the exportation of 6,000 acre feet per annum to the South Platte <br />basin.' <br />In the proposed decree, he would enjoin Colorado in accordance with this recommendation although, <br />confessedly, Colorado is not diverting, or contemplating diversion of, the waters in question. A more <br />gratuitous interference with a quasi- sovereign State I cannot imagine. It would disregard all that we have <br />repeatedly said to the effect that a state should not be enjoined by this Court at the suit of a sister state <br />unless she is inflicting, or threatening immediately to inflict, grave and substantial damage upon the <br />complainant. I cannot imagine that, as between private parties, an injunction would go against one who is <br />not doing, or immediately threatening to do, harm to the complainant. The court is simply taking Colorado <br />under its wing and purposes to act as guardian of the State in respect to the waters of the North Platte <br />within her borders. <br />One need only examine the Master's report to determine that Nebraska's case against Wyoming stands no <br />better than that against Colorado. <br />This court stated, in State of Colorado v. Kansas, 320 U.S. 383, 393 , 64 S.Ct. 176, 180: 'Such a <br />controversy as is here presented is not to be determined as if it were one between two private [325 U.S. <br />589, 661] riparian proprietors or appropriators.' Nor is it to be determined by the relative priorities of the <br />users in the upper and the lower states. Yet that is what in effect Nebraska sought by her complaint. She is <br />not awarded the relief she asked but instead the so-called 'natural flow' water is apportioned in percentages <br />between Wyoming and Nebraska. This is done in spite of the fact that the Master finds that Nebraska needs <br />none of the natural flow which passes the Tri -State Dam for lands lying below that point but has ample <br />water for those lands, regardless of any such flow. Without a showing of need for water for beneficial use <br />and, in spite of the fact that some of the water flowing past the Tri -State Dam is found now to go to waste, <br />an apportionment is made between Wyoming and Nebraska. The Master's findings show that, under the <br />heretofore uniform test, Nebraska has not proved such damage as would entitle her now to relief. The table <br />quoted in footnote 4 of the court's opinion demonstrates that during a thirty year period, while irrigation did <br />not increase materially in Colorado and increased about one -third in Wyoming, Nebraska more than <br />doubled her acreages under irrigation. Speaking of Nebraska agriculture's dependence on irrigation, the <br />Master says: <br />'On the other hand, when scanned for evidence of serious drouth damage since 1931, the statistics are <br />equivocal. It appears that there was a rather sharp reduction in the production of alfalfa and sugar beets, but <br />the indication is that this was due to a reduction of acreage rather than of rate of yield. While there was <br />some decline in the production rate of alfalfa, there was a rise in the rate for sugar beets. The acreages <br />devoted to beans and potatoes increased to very closely offset the reduction in beets and alfalfa, the total <br />acreages devoted to the four crops for the three five -year periods, being 124,281, 122,332, and 122,130 <br />respectively. The large increase in total production of beans and potatoes should also be noted. The <br />statistics, taken all in all, are, to say the least, [325 U.S. 589, 662] inconclusive as to the existence or <br />extent of damage to Nebraska by reason of the drouth or by reason of any deprivation of water by wrongful <br />uses in Wyoming or Colorado. <br />'Nebraska makes no strong claim for its showing in this regard. Her brief says: <br />"... the factors involved in the crop statistics which cannot be eliminated largely distort the picture and <br />make it difficult to show one way or the other the effe t and results of the shortage of irrigation water upon <br />crop production. However, we believe that when the statistics are properly considered in the light of other <br />factors, they indicate that crop production is seriously damaged when the water supply is low.' <br />'Another apparent demonstration of the importance of the part played by irrigation in the economic <br />development of western Nebraska may be seen in its Exhibits 433 and 434, in which the growth of <br />population in eight counties in which irrigation has been practiced is compared with that of six counties <br />without irrigation, the latter lying immediately east and south of the irrigated group. The first or irrigated <br />group of counties shows an increase in population in the 40 -year period between 1890 and 1930 of 131 per <br />cent. The second, the nonirrigated group, for the same period shows a population loss of three per cent. No <br />attempt, however, is made to attribute this lack of growth in the second group to anything done in <br />Wyoming or Colorado.' <br />Again the Master says: <br />'It is of course obvious in general and without any detailed proof that in an and or semi -arid country <br />deprivation of water for irrigation in time of need cannot be otherwise than injurious to the area deprived. <br />The weakness, if such there be, in Nebraska's proof is uncertainty as to the extent of any invasion of her <br />