OCR Text |
Show -20- Region 6 (which includes eastern Montana, northern Wyoming, and North and South Dakota) On December 14, 1949, the United States entered into a compromise settlement agreement with the Montana Power Company, with departmental approval, under which the United States acquired for $950,000 the Company's Canyon Ferry power plant and appurtenances on the main stem of the Missouri River and the Company's Montana water rights for power on the Missouri River in the amount necessary to operate its Canyon Ferry plant. Other than this case, we know of no instance in which existing water rights on navigable streams have been acquired but we know of no instance in this region in which the construction of a Federal project has interfered with existing water rights on a navigable stream. Water-right appropriations on behalf of the United States have been made pursuant to State law on navigable portions of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in the case of the Huntley, Buffalo Rapids, and Lower Yellowstone, Savage, Intake, and Buford-Trenton Projects in Montana. Similar appropriations have been made from the Milk River for the Milk River Project, from the Belle Fourche River for the Belle Fourche Project, from the Big Horn River for the Boysen Project, from the Cheyenne River for the Angostura Project, and from the Grand River for the Shadehill Project, but the legal navigability for these rivers may be open to question. No filings have been made for dam structures to be constructed in the main stem of the Missouri River by the Bureau of Reclamation in connection with the Missouri River Basin Project but it is anticipated that water filings will be made for irrigation water made available by these dams. |
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Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde 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, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : California exhibits. |