I
106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 4643
To provide for the settlement of issues and claims related to the trust
lands of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 13, 2000
Mrs. BONO (for herself and Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Resources
A BILL
To provide for the settlement of issues and claims related
to the trust lands of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla
Indians, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Torres-Martinez
Desert Cahuilla Indians Claims Settlement Act’’.
SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following:
(1) In 1876, the Torres-Martinez Indian Res-
ervation was created, reserving a single, 640-acre
section of land in the Coachella Valley, California,
north of the Salton Sink. The Reservation was ex-
panded in 1891 by Executive Order, pursuant to the
Mission Indian Relief Act of 1891, adding about
12,000 acres to the original 640-acre reservation.
(2) Between 1905 and 1907, flood waters of the
Colorado River filled the Salton Sink, creating the
Salton Sea, inundating approximately 2,000 acres of
the 1891 reservation lands.
(3) In 1909, an additional 12,000 acres of land,
9,000 of which were then submerged under the
Salton Sea, were added to the reservation under a
Secretarial Order issued pursuant to a 1907 amend-
ment of the Mission Indian Relief Act. Due to reced-
ing water levels in the Salton Sea through the proc-
ess of evaporation, at the time of the 1909 enlarge-
ment of the reservation, there were some expecta-
tions that the Salton Sea would recede within a pe-
riod of 25 years.
(4) Through the present day, the majority of
the lands added to the reservation in 1909 remain
inundated due in part to the flowage of natural run-
off and drainage water from the irrigation systems
of the Imperial, Coachella, and Mexicali Valleys into
the Salton Sea.
(5) In addition to those lands that are inun-
dated, there are also tribal and individual Indian
lands located on the perimeter of the Salton Sea
that are not currently irrigable due to lack of proper
drainage.
(6) In 1982, the United States brought an ac-
tion in trespass entitled ‘‘United States of America,
in its own right and on behalf of Torres-Martinez
Band of Mission Indians and the Allottees therein v.
the Imperial Irrigation District and Coachella Valley
Water District’’, Case No. 82–1790 K (M) (here-
after in this section referred to as the ‘‘U.S. Suit’’)
on behalf of the Torres-Martinez Indian Tribe and
affected Indian allottees against the two water dis-
tricts seeking damages related to the inundation of
tribal- and allottee-owned lands and injunctive relief
to prevent future discharge of water on such lands.
(7) On August 20, 1992, the Federal District
Court for the Southern District of California entered
a judgment in the U.S. Suit requiring the Coachella
Valley Water District to pay $212,908.41 in past
and future damages and the Imperial Irrigation Dis-
trict to pay $2,795,694.33 in past and future dam-
ages in lieu of the United States request for a per-