WSP04842

• File Number: 8067
• Description: Section D General Federal Issues/Policies-Section 7 Consultations
• Date: 7/14/1976
• Author: Frank E Maynes
• Title: Federal Water Rights 1973-83-A General Discussion of the Federal Reserved Rights Doctrine
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

"0 D 2 0 ~16

.

.

Water divisions.

Legal arguments propounded to the referee ranged from an outright

denial that there ever existed any such thing as a federal reserved

water right, to allegations that the federal reserved water rights are

so cloaked in mystery that their effect upon existing water users would

be impossible to define, thereby rendering any rational administration

of such rights an outright impossibility. It was argued that reserved

rights, if they existed, were limited by the common law principals of

riparian water rights, limited by or to the Colorado doctrine of prior

appropriation, and that the United States was estopped from claiming

reserved rights in Colorado.

The results, at this time, quoting from the Master Referee's partial

reports filed April 16, 1976 (which incidentally was 820 pages long and

was expected to reach some 1250 pages, when it is compiled in final form)

are as follows:

1. Water appurtenant to the various federal reservations involved
herein, to wit: national parks, national monuments, national forests,
public springs and water holes, and mineral hot springs, may be reserved
for use on the reservation to which the water is appurtenant.

2. The United States intended and did, in fact, reserve waters for
use upon the reservations under consideration in this matter.

3. The United States must quantify the reserved right appurtenant
to the above reservations and withdrawals.

4. Although the United States is entitled to conditional and
absolute water rights for the benefit of the various reserved lands in
this matter, the reserved right of the United States must be strictly
construed and is not as broad and so extensive as claimed by the government.

5. The reserved water right does not exist or have a priority to
serve reserved land prior to the date that such land was reserved, nor
to serve any but the purposes of the reservation as they existed at the

-7-