Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 443.0

282 

SOUTH  CAROLINA  v.  NORTH  CAROLINA 

Opinion of Roberts, C. J. 

sions  that  water  disputes  among  States  may  be  resolved  by 
compact  or  decree  without  the  participation  of  individual 
claimants”).1 

The majority contends that the result in this case is not a 
“new  development,”  and  that  its  holding  is  supported  by 
“nearly  90  years”  of  precedent.  Ante,  at  264.  But  in  sup­
port  of  those  statements,  the  majority  cites  only  four  deci­
sions  in  which  the  Court  has  granted  a  motion  to  intervene 
in  an  original  suit—and  of  course  none  in  which  this  Court 
granted  the  motion  of  a  nonsovereign  entity  to  intervene  in 
an  equitable  apportionment  action.  The  cases  the  majority 
cites demonstrate what constitutes a “compelling interest in 
[the intervenor’s] own right, apart from his interest in a class 
with all other citizens and creatures of the state.”  New Jer­
sey v.  New York, 345 U. S., at 373.  But the intervenor inter­
ests  in  those  cases  were  quite  different  from  the  general 
shared interest in water at issue here. 

Take  Arizona  v.  California,  460  U. S.  605  (1983).  There 
we  allowed  several  Indian  Tribes  to  intervene  in  a  water 
dispute.  Id., at 615.  As the Court in that case made clear, 
however,  the  Indian  Tribes  were  allowed  to  intervene  be­
cause  they  were  sovereign  entities.  Ibid.  The  Court  dis­
tinguished  New  Jersey  v.  New  York  on  that  very  ground. 
See 460 U. S., at 615, n. 5. 

1 The majority contends that this dissent reads our precedents to estab­
lish “a rule against nonstate intervention” in equitable apportionment ac­
tions.  Ante,  at  265,  n.  3.  The  number  of  nonsovereigns  that  the  Court 
should permit to intervene in water disputes is small—indeed, it was zero 
until today.  But that does not mean that a private entity could not satisfy 
the  New  Jersey  v.  New  York  test  by,  for  example,  asserting  water-use 
rights that are not dependent upon the rights of state parties.  A private 
party (or perhaps a Compact Clause entity) with a federal statutory right 
to a certain quantity of water might have a compelling interest in an equi­
table  apportionment  action  that  is  not  fairly  represented  by  the  States. 
The  putative  intervenors  in  this  case,  however,  do  not  hold  rights  of  this 
sort.