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Show CHAPTER XI 189 F.3 Act Enlarging Reservation Public Law 87-150, Act of August 17, 1961, 75 Stat. 387, granted to the Cocopah Indians in Arizona 81.64 acres of public domain adjacent to the Executive Order Reservation. This area included Lots 14 and 15, Section 30, T. 9 S., R. 24 W., G&SRM, and Lots 3, 4, and 5, Section 25, T. 9 S., R. 25 W. However, the priority date for the right to water therefor is not resolved. The purpose of the legislation was to add lands to the Reservation which had long been occupied by the Indians and had been thought by the Indians to be Reservation lands. Public Law 87-150 was designed to cure the defect in the Indians' title to the land as set out in the Solicitor's 1955 Opinion. It extended the Reservation westward to an old Reclamation levee constructed about 1907, but not to the river since the levee prevented the river from shifting east (see Appendix 1106 for text of Act). F.4. Litigation On October 12, 1970, the Native American Rights Fund, on behalf of the Cocopah Tribe, initiated "Cocopah Tribe of Indians v. Walter J. Hickel, No. Civ. 70-573-PHX-WEC, U.S.D.C, District of Arizona." The action alleged that Executive Order 2711 of September 27, 1917, established the western boundary of the West Cocopah Reservation as the water course of the Colorado River. It also claimed about 1,000 acres of land extending to the changed channel of the river as accretion to lands of the Cocopah Indian Reservation. F.5. Departmental Actions Efforts were initiated within the Department of the Interior to provide administrative relief to the Indians. On December 21, 1972, in Opinion M-36867, the Solicitor advised the Assistant Secretary for Public Land Management that he differed with the 1955 Solicitor's Opinion. He concluded that the reference in the Executive Order to fractional portions of quarters of Section 30: "...were words of description and not of limitation and that the Reservation as created by the Executive Order of September 27, 1917, extended to the Colorado River. The Solicitor's Opinion of April 15, 1955, M-36275, is therefore reversed." On the basis thereof, on December 29, 1972, the Assistant Secretary issued an Opinion that the western boundary of the Reservation at the date of the Executive Order creating the Reservation, September 27, 1917, was the Colorado river, notwithstanding the fact that there were lands in existence on that date between the Colorado River and what would have been the western line of Section 30 had the public survey lines been extended. He ordered the official records to be noted accordingly. The effect of the action was to add approximately 900 acres to the Reservation. Despite this Departmental action, the Cocopah Tribe desired a stipulated judgment in its aforenoted action against the Secretary even though the Department of Justice felt such a judgment was inappropriate. In this regard, the Bureau of Reclamation was concerned about protecting facilities it had constructed in this area. These included its older levee constructed between 1905 and 1912, its railroad constructed in 1914 on that levee, its newer levee constructed in 1950 to the west or on the river side of the old levee, the need for an effluent discharge channel west of the 1950 levee required in connection with water deliveries to Mexico, and for rights-of-way for irrigation and drainage facilities. On May 12, 1975, Judge Craig, in a "Final Judgment," stated he had reviewed the file and the stipulation of counsel that this judgment be executed and granted plaintiffs motion for summary judgment. He ordered and declared that the Reservation, "as established by the Executive Order of September 17, 1917, was and is riparian to the Colorado River and includes any land added to its boundaries by accretion__" The judgment awarded the Tribe approximately 883 acres of accreted lands adjacent to the Reservation of which approximately 780 acres are alleged by the Tribe to be irrigable with a diversion right of 6.39 acre-feet per acre. No appeal was sought. |