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Show SOME GENERAL PROCEDURAL MATTERS IN WATER RIGHTS LITIGATION 501 Appropriators and Riparian Owners In most water rights litigation in the Western States, appropriators and intending appropriators have been made parties. Moreover, in many cases in those Western States that recognize riparian rights, owners of riparian lands have been parties. Some such controversies have involved riparian proprietors only-one riparian or group as against another single owner or group. In many other cases litigated in the high courts, parties have comprised riparian propri- etors on the one hand and appropriators or appropriative claimants on the other. Much of the present law of western water rights has grown out of this widespread antagonism between proponents of these respective funda- mental systems and the many riparian-appropriation conflicts in the courts.336 adjudication. [See the discussion at notes 197-201 supra. ] * * * * * * * "* * * The absence of owners of previously decreed rights may present problems going to the merits, in case there develops a collision between them and any reserved rights of the United States. All such questions, including the volume and scope of particular reserved rights, are federal questions which, if preserved, can be reviewed here after final judgment by the Colorado court." The court preceded the quoted language with the statement, inter alia, that "Here the United States is primarily concerned with reserved waters for the White River National Forest, withdrawn in 1905, Colorado having been admitted into the Union in 1876." United States v. District Court in and for the County of Eagle, 401 U.S. 520, 523-526 (1971). A companion case involved water rights with respect to some national forests; national recreational and other water-use purposes by the Department of the Interior (by its National Park Service and Bureaus of Land Management, Mines, and Sport Fisheries and Wildlife); and naval petroleum and oil shale reserves. In this case, suit had been brought under a new (1969) Colorado water-rights determination statute. The court, inter alia, said: "It is pointed out that the new statute contemplates monthly proceedings before a water referee on water rights applications. These proceedings, it is argued, do not constitute general adjudications of water rights because all the water users and all water rights on a stream system are not involved in the referee's determinations. The only water rights considered in the proceeding are those for which an application has been filed within a particular month. It is also said that the Act makes all water rights confirmed under the new procedure junior to those previously awarded. [See the discussion at notes 222 and 233 supra. ] "It is argued from those premises that the proceeding does not constitute a general adjudication which 43 U.S.C. § 666 contemplated. As we said in the Eagle County case, the words 'general adjudication' were used in Dugan v. Rank, 372 U.S. 609, 618, to indicate that 43 U.S.C. § 666 does not cover consent by the United States to be sued in a private suit to determine its rights against a few claimants. The present suit, like the one in the Eagle County case, reaches all claims, perhaps month by month but inclusively in the totality; and, as we said in the other case, if there is a collision between prior adjudicated rights and reserved rights of the United States, the federal question can be preserved in the state decision and brought here for review." United States v. District Court in and for Water Division No. 5, 401 U.S. 527, 529-530 (1971). 336 Chapter 10 contains as its first topic "The Riparian Doctrine in the West." This includes brief statements as to what the doctrine applies, its importance in some States |
