AZ vs. CA:21 California Exhibits, Vol. XXI; Nos. 4501-4597

page 1

[1] ITEM A THE ACT OF APRIL 21, 1904 1. Extract From Act of April 21, 1904 (33 Stat. 189, 224-25)/ Sec. 25. That in carrying out any irrigation enterprise which may be undertaken under the provisions of the reclamation Act of June seventeenth, nineteen hundred and two,2 and which may make possible and provide for, in connection with the reclamation of other lands, the reclamation of all or any portion of the irrigable lands on the Yuma and Colorado River Indian reservations in California and Arizona, the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to divert the waters of the Colorado River and to reclaim, utilize, and dispose of any lands in said reservations which may be irrigable by such works xThis extract is part of U.S. Ex. No. 507 (identified at p. 13,659 of the transcript). The quoted provision of this statute was amended on March 3, 1911 (36 Stat. 1063, part of U.S. Ex. No. 507, identified at p. 13,659 of the transcript), to provide that ten irrigable acres, instead of five, shall be reserved for and allotted to each of the Indians belonging on the Yuma and Colorado River Reservations. 2Section 8 of the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902, provides: "That nothing in this Act shall be construed as affecting or intended to affect or to in any way interfere with the laws of any State or Territory relating to the control, appropriation, use, or distribution of water used in irrigation, or any vested right acquired thereunder, and the Secretary of the Interior, in carrying out the provisions of this Act, shall proceed in conformity with such laws, and nothing herein shall in any way affect any right of any State or of the Federal Government or of any landowner, appropriator, or user of water in, to, or from any interstate stream or the waters thereof: Provided, That the right to the use of water acquired under the provisions of this Act shall be appurtenant to the land irrigated, and beneficial use shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit of the right." (32 Stat. 390; codified in 43 U.S.C.A. §§372 and 383.)