OCR Text |
Show 257 erly presented in this case, it is appropriate to adjudicate it here. The United States claims are sustained. It has been established that the United States has the power to reserve water for the benefit of an Indian Reservation, created out of public lands, and that such a reservation of water creates a water right good against subsequent ap-propriators even if they beneficially use the water before the Reservation uses it. In short, the United States has the power to create a water right appurtenant to such lands without complying with state law. Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564 (1908), involved a suit by the United States on behalf of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, which was created by treaty between the United States and various Indian tribes on May 1, 1888. The land set apart for the Indians under the treaty was arid, but susceptible of sustaining agriculture if irrigated from the Milk River, a non-navigable stream which formed the northern border of the Reservation. The Court found that it was the intention of the United States and the Indians that the Indians should settle on the Reservation and change from a nomadic to a "pastoral and civilized people." 207 U. S., at 576. Subsequent to the establishment of the Indian Reservation, the defendants in the case acquired lands along the Milk River upstream from the Reservation under the Desert Land Act, 19 Stat. 377 (1877), by settling on the land and putting it to productive use by irrigation with water diverted from the Milk River. Some of the defendant farmers diverted water from the Milk River and obtained appropriative rights thereto under the Desert Land Act and the local law of Montana as early as 1895.143 Fed. 740, 742 (1906). According to the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Indians were diverting, at the time of trial, 5,000 miners' inches of water, most of which they began to use after appropriative rights of some of the defendants |
Source |
Original Report: State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California |