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WSP08316
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Last modified
1/26/2010 2:47:44 PM
Creation date
10/12/2006 2:53:32 AM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Water Supply Protection
File Number
8210.140.20
Description
Colorado River Basin Organizations and Entities - Colorado River Basin States Forum - California
State
CA
Basin
Western Slope
Date
1/1/1976
Author
Myron B Holburt
Title
Annual Report for the Calendar Year 1975
Water Supply Pro - Doc Type
Annual Report
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<br />,#' ,. ", '-I <br />.1 u._ "t!' <br /> <br />Legal Issues <br /> <br />Arizona v. California and Other <br />lower Basin Water Rights Issues <br /> <br />The issue of present perfected rights <br />in the 1964 United States Supreme <br />Court Decree in Arizona v, California <br />continued during 1975 without <br />settlement. Present perfected rights <br />are rights acquired under state law <br />prior to June 25, 1929, the effective <br />date of the Boulder Canyon Project <br />Act. The Board's 1974 Annual Report <br />described the seven-month period <br />which Interior granted the Indian <br />tribes to evaluate the proposed <br />stipulated judgment on present <br />perfected rights which had been <br />drafted by Interior and agreed to by <br />the parties to the suit. <br />Several months after expiration of <br />the period granted to the Indians, <br />representatives from California, <br />Arizona, and Nevada met in <br />Washington, D.C., in March 1975 with <br />representatives from the Departments <br />of Interior and Justice and the Indian <br />tribes to discuss the proposed <br />stipulated judgment. At this meeting, it <br />became clear that the tribes are <br />seeking to combine their claims for <br />additional water with the settlement <br />of the present perfected rights issue. <br />The representatives of the states and <br />the water agencies argued that the <br />proposed stipulation could not affect <br />the Indians' decreed rights. They <br />further pointed out that any claims <br />the Indians may have for additional <br />water was a separate issue and that it <br />could be brought before the Supreme <br />Court pursuant to Article IX of the <br />Decree in Arizona v. California. <br />After granting an additional <br />extension of time to the tribes and the <br />Bureau of Indian Affairs to complete <br />studies of the stipulation on present <br />perfected rights, the Department of <br />the Interior in September transmitted <br />copies of these studies to the states <br /> <br />14 <br /> <br />for review and comment. California's <br />Assistant Attorney General replied in <br />November that none of the <br />supposedly factual statements or legal <br />contentions opposing the stipulation <br />presented anything relevant that had <br />not already been discussed, and that <br />the parties found no basis for further <br />delaying approval of the stipulation <br />that had been developed over the <br />past 10 years, The Attorney General's <br />reply also emphasized that the <br />proposed stipulation would not affect <br />the Indians' decreed rights, noted that <br />it had been over two and one-half <br />years since Interior first recommended <br />the proposed stipulation to the <br />Department of Justice, and urged <br />lnterior to again approve the <br />proposed stipulation. <br />Part of the material utilized by the <br />Bureau of Indian Affairs for an <br />analysis of present perfected rights <br />included a study by Earth <br />Environmental Consultants, Inc., of <br />Albuquerque, New Mexico, of the <br />irrigability of additional lands on the <br />five Indian Reservations along the <br />Lower Colorado River. The Supreme <br />Court, in its 1963 opinion in Arizona <br />v. California, found that the measure <br />of the Indians' reserved water rights <br />was that necessary to irrigate all the <br />practicably irrigable acreage on the <br />reservations, Since the classification <br />by the consultant was simply on the <br />basis of soil physical and chemical <br />properties and did not give <br />consideration to any of the economic <br />factors involved in development of <br />the land and production of crops that <br />are necessary in a determination of <br />"practicably irrigable acreage", the <br />consultant's results are not a <br />meaningful measure of additional <br />irrigable land as defined by the <br />Supreme Court. <br />Accordingly, in June 1975, <br />California, Arizona, and Nevada, in a <br />joint letter to the Secretary of the <br />Interior, asked the Bureau of <br />Reclamation to review the studies and <br />introduce the other factors normally <br />included in a land classification survey <br /> <br />to determine the "practicably irrigable <br />acreage" on the five reservations. <br />During October, Bureau of <br />Reclamation personnel made a <br />cursory field examination of the land <br />classification un the five reservations <br />and concluded, in a memorandum <br />report to the Commissioner of <br />Reclamation, that the classification <br />had limited value and was misleading <br />for the purposes stated. The <br />Commissioner of Reclamation later <br />informed the Solicitor of Interior of <br />this finding and stated that an <br />extensive study, requiring about 9 <br />months to complete and costing about <br />$265,000, would be required to <br />determine the practicably irrigable <br />acreage. <br />Members of the Solicitor of the <br />Interior's staff prepared a draft <br />opinion and draft Secretarial Order <br />that would expand the boundaries of <br />the Yuma Indian Reservation by about <br />32,000 acres. The Quechan Tribe, on <br />the reservation, announced that they <br />would seek to obtain water rights for <br />the irrigable portion of these lands. <br />The California Attorney General's <br />office and representatives from <br />California and Arizona agencies met <br />with the Solicitor on March 18, 1975, <br />regarding the issues relating to the <br />draft opinion and draft Secretarial <br />Order. Thereafter, the Attorney <br />General's office submitted to the <br />Department of Interior in May, a legal <br />analysis concurred in by Arizona <br />which disagreed with the conclusions <br />reached in the drafts prepared by the <br />Solicitor's staff, The Secretary of the <br />Interior and the Solicitor agreed to <br />meet with the state representatives to <br />review the issues and the legal <br />analyses prior to arriving at any <br />decision. This meeting had not been <br />held by the end of the year. <br /> <br />Central Utah Project lawsuit <br /> <br />I n August 1975, thirteen individual <br />members of the Ute Indian Tribe of <br />the Uintah and Ouray Reservation <br />filed suit in the Utah Federal District <br />Court against the United States and <br />the Central Utah Water Conservancy <br />
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