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ambivalence as guardian over Native American water resources. As the National Water Commission observed in 1973, federal policies to establish irrigated agricul- ture and settle the West "were pursued with little or no regard for Indian water rights and the Winters doc- trine." The Commission concluded that: "With few exceptions the projects were planned and built by the federal government without any attempt to defme, let alone protect, prior rights that Native American tribes might have had in the waters used for the projects (Checchio and Colby 1993:19). Prom 1908 to 1963 the federal government built an extensive system of agrarian water distribution parceling out the waters of the west to agricultural interests and ranchers in keeping with state prior appropriation docR trine. During this same fifty-five year period, it obtained federal court decisions enforcing Native American reserved water rights against state prior appropriations doctrine only four times (Burton 1989:158). Congressional recognition of prior appropriation doc- trine came first in the Desert Land Act of 1877, but more explicitly in the 1902 Reclamation Act, which called for federal compliance with state water rights doctrine in distributing federal project water. Under this doctrine. based on the concept of "first in time, first in right," a water right is granted to those who first appropriate surface waters with the understanding that the right provides permanent access to the water source only so long as the water is put to a "beneficial use" on a regular basis (Checchio and Colby 1993:7). At the heart of the conflict over Native American water rights lies the fact that tribal claims and those of the non-Native American majority in the west are based on two entirely different systems of law. Tribal water rights stem mostly from federal court interpretations of 26 treaties, Executive Orders, and other agreements made between Native American tribes and the federal govern- ment (Burton 1989:157). This conflict between state water law and federal treaty rights came to a head around the turn of the century, on the Port Belknap Reservation in Montana. In 1888 Congress enacted an agreement with the Gros Ventre, Piegan, Blood, Blackfeet, and River Crow tribes, in which the Indians relinquished all but 600,000 acres of their 17.5 million- acre range in return for the supplies and support neces- sary to transform the Fort Belknap Reservation from buffalo range to productive farmland (Burton 1989:157; Getches et alI993:779). The Milk River, which borders the reservation, was the intended water source for an Indian irrigation project and proved to be insufficient due to large diversions by nonRIndians upstream from the reservation which seriously depleted the river's flow (Checchio and Colby 1993: 8). The US Supreme Court confirmed this understand- ing, in 1908, when it handed down its historic "Winters" decision. In Winters vs United States, the Supreme Court held that when [the Port Belknap] reservation(s) were established, Indian tribes and the United States implicitly reserved, along with the land, sufficient water to fulfill the purposes of the reserva- tions (Checchio and Colby 1993:8). Since these reserved rights are not created by state law, Winters rights retain their validity and seniority, making them some of the most reliable, and valuable rights and creating a great deal of uncertainty over the many western water rights perfected under state law (Checchio and Colby 1993:10). In 1952 a states' rights-oriented Congress enacted legis- lation mandating that under certain circumstances the federal government's water rights must be adjudicated in state courts. Popularly cited as the "McCarran