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O(jn63~; . . Statement of Raphael J. Moses, Consultant Colorado Water Conservation Board at the hearings of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee on S. 3298, the Central Arizona Indian Tribal Water Rights Settlement Act of 1976 August 10, 1976 The problem of Indian water rights has perplexed Western water right owners and administrators ever since the Winters decision. Floyd Bishop, then State Engineer of Wyoming, in testimony before the National Water Commission in 1969, in speaking of fede~al reserved rights generally, said: We feel that federal claims of reservation of unlimited quantities of water for use on federal reservations, with a priority as of the date of the reservation, create a cloud over state-granted water rights which is intolerable. Such unquantified reservations would limit future develop- ment and discourage investment in water projects. ... The potential impact of the Reservation Doctrine on our state is significant. At its extreme it could seriously damage existing water users, and as a minimum it creates a cloud over future water development which needs to be removed. Senator McCarran pointed out the practical problem inadvo- catingthe adoption of S. 18, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, which later evoked as the so-called McCarran Amendment (43 U.S,C, 666). He said: S. 18 '.' is not intended to be used for any other purpose than to allow the United States to be joined in a suit wherein it is necessary to adjudicate all of the rights of various owners on a given stream. This is so because unless all of the parties owning or in the process of acquiring water rights on a particular stream can be joined as parties defendant, any subsequent decree would be of little value. S.Rep. No. 755, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. 9 (1951).