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Show APPENDIX IX IX-23 IV. Arizona-New Mexico Gila Controversy. Arizona and New Mexico presented the Master with conflicting claims to water in the Gila River, the tributary that rises in New Mexico and flows through Arizona. Having determined that tributaries are not within the regulatory provisions of the Project Act the Master held that this interstate dispute should be decided under the principles of equitable apportionment. After hearing evidence on this issue, the Master accepted a compromise settlement agreed upon by these States and incorporated that settlement in his findings and conclusions, and in Part IV (A) (B) (C) (D) of his recommended decree. No exceptions have been filed to these recommendations by any of the parties and they are accordingly accepted by us. Except for those discussed in Part V, we are not required to decide any other disputes between tributary users or between mainstream and tributary users. V. Claims of the United States. In these proceedings, the United States has asserted claims to waters in the main river and in some of the tributaries for use on Indian Reservations, National Forests, Recreational and Wildlife Areas and other government lands and works. While the Master passed upon some of these claims, he declined to reach others, particularly those relating to tributaries. We approve his decision as to which claims required adjudication, and likewise we approve the decree he recommended for the government claims he did decide. We shall discuss only the claims of the United States on behalf of the Indian Reservations. The Government, on behalf of five Indian Reservations in Arizona, California, and Nevada, asserted rights to water in the mainstream of the Colorado River.97 The Colorado River Reservation, located partly in Arizona and partly in California, is the largest. It was originally created by an Act of Congress in 1865,98 but its area was later increased by Executive Order." Other reservations were created by Executive Orders and amendments to them, ranging in dates from 1870 to 1907.10° The Master found both as a matter of fact and law that when the United States created these reservations or added to them, it reserved not only land but also the use of enough water from the Colorado to irrigate the irrigable portions of the reserved lands. The aggregate quantity of water which the Master held was reserved for all the reservations is about 1,000,000 acre-feet, to be used on around 135,000 irrigable acres of land. Here, as before the Master, Arizona argues that the United States had no power to make a reservation of navigable waters after Arizona became a State; that navigable waters could not be reserved by Executive Orders; that the United States did not intend to reserve water for the Indian Reservations; that the amount of water reserved should be measured by the reasonably foreseeable needs of the Indians living on the reservation rather than by the number of irrigable acres; and, finally, that the judicial doctrine of equitable apportionment should be used to divide the water between the Indians and the other people in the State of Arizona. The last argument is easily answered. The doctrine of equitable apportionment is a method of resolving water disputes between States. It was created by this Court in the exercise of its original jurisdiction over controversies in which States are parties. An Indian Reservation is not a State. And while Congress has sometimes left Indian Reservations considerable power to manage their own affairs, we are not convinced by Arizona's argument that each reservation is so much like a State that its rights to water should be determined "The Reservations were Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Yuma, Colorado River and Fort Mohave. ?•Act of March 3, 1865, 13 Stat. 541, 559. "See Executive Orders of November 22, 1873, November 16, 1874, and May 15, 1876. See also Executive Order of November 22, 1915. These orders may be found in 1 U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Executive Orders Relating to Indian Reservations 6-7 (1912); 2 id., at 5-6 (1922). '••Executive Orders of January 9, 1884 (Yuma), September 19, 1890 (Fort Mohave), February 2, 1911 (Fort Mohave), September 27, 1917 (Cocopah). For these orders, see 1 id., at 12-13, 63-64 (1912); 2 id., at 5 (1922). The Chemehuevi Reservation was established by the Secretary of the Interior on February 2, 1907, pending congressional approval. |
