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GLJ33J8 systems. This second definition constituted more of a legaJ-limitation of claims rather than s fsctualle8t. In this light, the witn888 might consist- ently state that in that senss he did not malte a mistake and still claim that irrigsbls land W88 excluded from tha claims. Pr. Tr. 14152-54. 60. Pro Tr. 14113.19, 14150-51. 61. See Pro Tr. 14119.57, 14254-66A. 62. For example, when pr888ed about the economic feasihility of his project design, the United States witn... replied that hs only considered such things as "appear[ed] reasonabla" and that moot of the designs ha pre8~nted were "entirely feasible at'very rigid economic feasibility." Pr. Tr. 14122. This im'estigation W88 not designed to produce the maximum claims because the experts were not attempting to determine whethar the marginal returns equalled the marginal costa. Rather they designed irrigation systems that they felt were clearly economically feaaible. "[I]t waa not limited. We did not have ocCBSion to investigate the Iimila of it hecause they are all entirely within practices of economics." ld. Obvi- ously, unIesa such an inquiry is pressed to a clo.. marginal analysis, the maximum fe88ible claim baa not been determined. 63. The mesa landa on Fort Mojave which the wilD... said he mistak- enly omitted most probably lie in the present Calsda Unit. See id. at 14151-52. A large amount of land alollll the Arizona side of the River on the Colorado River Indian Reservation waa alao noted to be susceptible to farming but waa omitted primarily because of the "recreational pas- ,ihilities of tha area." The witn... alao mentionfld thet he thought the area would serve as a buffer zone for the irrigation unit to the east of the levee in CBS' of ftood. He concluded hy stating thet it is "poaaible that some of that should be irrigated too." Pr. Tr. 14113-14. Theae reasons appear rather weak in light of the purposes of this inquiry. This area The State Parties initially characterized the United States' failure to claim water rights for the omitted lands as a "reasoned tactical decision,''" They did not reveal what legitimate tactical basis would have sup- ported a decision by the United States as trustee to fail to press water rights claims for the" omitted lands. The United States replies that it finds it impossible to determine the reason for the limitation of its r.1AimA in the prior proceeding.... The precise reason for this fail- ure may be unknown but the failure to claim such lands is clear. · The State Parties later offered the explanation that these claims were not pressed because the United States believed the land was not practicably irriga- ble.... This theory is belied by several factors. First, the United States' own witnesses indicated at the hearings that irrigable land was mistakenly excluded from the claim. Second, the method utilized by the engineers and soils experts was not designed to discover a maxi. mum claim. Most important, the State Parties' conces. sion that the majority of the omitted lands claimed now by the United States is practicably irrigable tends to show that water rights for the land were omitted for some reason other than a belief that the land did not meet the standards used in the case. IT such amount of those lands is so clearly practicably irrigable as to pro- voke such a concession from an adversary, a trustee such as the United States would certainly reach the unpersuasive reasons for limiting the claims.'. In addi- tion, the basic methodology of those experts seems flawed. The United States engineers mapped certain tracts of land for irrigation projects which they gener- ally considered to be clearly economically feasible and then the soils expert classified such land within the mapped boundaries.81 This order of inquiry and loose analysis of general economic feasibility was obviously not designed to discover the muimum extent of the practicably irrigable acreage on the Reservations.'. Some of these same lands, I believe, are lands for which the United States now claims water rights.e. consisla of aevera! thouaand acre. for which the United States preaented a claim in the preaent proceedinga. See U.s. Em. 42, map of Colorado River Indian Reservation. See auo Pr. U.s. Exha. 660, 662. 64. Memorandum of Metropolitan Water Diatrict 20 (Jan. 1981). 65. United States' Cloeinl Poet-Trial Brief 11-13 (June 1981). 66. Stata Parties' Poet-Trial Cloeinl Brief 64 (June 1981), Arizona Supplemental Res JudiCata Brief 9 (May 19S1). 50 51