Opinion ID: 1118319
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the tribes' right to an instream flow

Text: The Tribes rely on the language of the district court decrees which manifest that they may use the reserved water rights, whether waters they have used historically or waters which were adjudicated to them for future needs, as they determine best fit their needs: This court, thus, calculates the Tribes' entitlement to a reserved water right, with a priority date of 1868, based on the purpose of agriculture (which term includes livestock use and domestic use) and denies such reserved water right for other multi-purpose uses as claimed by the Tribes. The Court by such finding does not intend to dictate to the Tribes that they are restricted as to the use of said reserved water only for the purpose of agriculture, inasmuch as it recognizes that it cannot tell the Tribes how they must use the water that comes under a reserved water permit. If the Tribes desire to use so much of their water for other purposes, they may do so. Judge Joffe, Decree at 20 (May 10, 1983). The Court states again the premise that the determination of historic acreage and practicable irrigable acreage is used only as a measuring device to calculate the Tribes' present and future needs.    When the Tribes determine where and how they wish to use the water granted in this decree, they will inform the proper authorities who will then be able to make the specific determinations which are necessary for administration of a water right. Id., at 36. The tribes are entitled to make such use of the water covered by their reserved water rights as they deem advisable but the use is confined to the reservation and in no event shall the consumptive use be increased. Judge Johnson, Amended Decree at 17, ¶ 8 (May 15, 1985). The reserved water right quantified by Judge Joffe does not deny the Tribes the ability to regulate in-stream flows in order to maintain what may be considered necessary water for optimum fish habitat, nor does the opinion limit any such power that may exist on the part of the Tribes. The Tribes may seek to dedicate their stream flows for fish habitat by using water reserved to them by this decision. Judge Hartman, Order at 7 (March 11, 1991), quoted from June 4, 1984 Order. The appellants discern a gray area based on the interaction of paragraphs 2 and 8 of the conclusions of law in the original decrees. Paragraph 2 describes the reserved water right in terms of a right to divert water. The appellants then go on to reason that, although the right is reserved and may be dedicated to instream flows, the water must first have been diverted to some other use. An instream flow does not require a diversion. I simply cannot accede to such a reading of the decree. At best it is obtuse and insensitive to the Tribes' property right in the adjudicated water. At worst it is duplicitous. In order to adopt this line of argument, we would be required to hold, as Justice Cardine postulates, that the Tribes were adjudicated the ownership of the water, but they may not use it unless first diverted to an agricultural use. Nothing in the decree or any subsequent rulings of the district court, or of this court, or of the United States Supreme Court [1] , serves to support such a conjuration. Whether the Tribes could utilize their water rights, whether historic or future, for other purposes was not raised as an issue in Big Horn I. It is so abundantly clear that if the issue had been raised, this court could only have held that the Tribes may put their water to uses consistent with their needs without regard to the traditional water law of Wyoming and, harsh as it may sound, the needs of other water users who are subordinate to the Tribes. The primary issue in Big Horn I was quantification, and we simply were not presented with the issue of other uses nor did we respond to that issue in the majority opinion. Justice Macy would now have us believe that Big Horn I clearly and unequivocally determined the question of other uses and that [i]f we had intended to specify what the water could be used for merely as a methodology to determine the amount of water the Tribes could use for any purpose, we would have said so. Justice Macy, at 5. If the court had intended to hold in Big Horn I that use of water could never be changed to instream flow, the court could have clearly said so, but it did not. Justice Macy places great weight on what he perceives as evidence of prior discussion of other uses limitation by relying on the dissents in Big Horn I. But the dissenters do little more than state their disagreement with the majority's narrow view in affirming agricultural purpose as the sole method of quantification of rights. See Big Horn I, 753 P.2d at 117 (Thomas, J., dissenting; Hanscum, D.J., dissenting). If there is language from the majority in Big Horn I which purports to resolve the other uses issue, it has not been cited in the present opinion and, indeed, from our careful reading of the opinion we can find none. To suggest otherwise is absolute sophistry. [2] In addition to the language of the decree itself, there are substantial precedents which mandate recognition that the Tribes may use their water for instream flows. 4 Waters and Water Rights § 37.02(e) (Robert E. Beck, ed., Michie 1991). The Tribes do not appear to be asking for an unfettered right to use their water for any purpose they desire. Big Horn I can only be read to hold that the Tribes may use their water in a manner which is consistent with their best interests so long as the public right is not extinguished [3] . 4 Id. § 31.03. There simply is no question but that an instream flow is a beneficial use, whether studied under the federal law which must govern in this instance, or studied under traditional Wyoming state water law, which may have some application here as persuasive authority. The Tribes may call for their water for any use to which water may be beneficially put, and if the appellants are aggrieved, then they may take action, consistent with due process of law and in recognition of the Tribes' property rights, to question that use before the district court. The burden of proof in such an instance must be on the appellants, not the Tribes. Thus, if the only injury to other users comes about because the Tribes are actually using their water for instream flow, and that same injury would exist if the water was used to irrigate corn, then there is no injury for which the appellants or the State of Wyoming may seek a remedy. The rights which the Tribes received through Big Horn I are property rights. The Tribes may not be deprived of their rights absent due process of law. Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 6; U.S. Const. amend. V, XIV; 16A Am.Jur.2d Constitutional Law §§ 598, 804-857 (1979). The process that is due the Tribes is, as stated above, that they first receive the water adjudicated to themnothing more, nothing less. If the water is within the quantity adjudicated and its use will take place on the reservation, then the state engineer is bound to make that water available as requested. The Tribes' adjudicated water is not subject to the usual sort of administration by the state engineer as discussed more fully in the second part of this dissent. I would hold that the Tribes may use their water for an instream flow. This is consistent with prior court decisions and the decree as it currently stands affirmed by this court and the Supreme Court of the United States. Colville Confederated Tribes v. Walton, 647 F.2d 42, 48 (9th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1092, 102 S.Ct. 657, 70 L.Ed.2d 630; and see 4 Waters and Water Rights, supra § 37.02(e). In Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 576, 28 S.Ct. 207, 211, 52 L.Ed. 340, 346 (1908), the United States Supreme Court was clearly of the view that the Indians retained command of the lands and the waterscommand of all their beneficial use, whether kept for hunting, `and grazing roving herds of stock,' or turned to agriculture and the arts of civilization. This broad language does not allow a crabbed interpretation of the proper uses of the reserved water by the Tribes. In Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 83 S.Ct. 1468, 10 L.Ed.2d 542 (1963), the special master shared this view, as has the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior. This demonstrates the agency's conviction to support multiple uses of Indian reserved water rights. See Harold A. Ranquist, The Effect of Changes in Place and Nature of Use of Indian Rights to Water Reserved Under the Winters Doctrine, 5 Natural Resources Lawyer 34, 35 n. 3 and 36 (1972) (referring to Simon H. Rifkind, Report of the Special Master in Arizona v. California; Memorandum for the Secretary of the Interior, dated February 1, 1964; and Memorandum to the Regional Solicitor at Los Angeles, dated January 21, 1971). See also Membrino, supra, note 1, at 24 n. 84, which refers to Solicitor's opinion, February 1, 1964 (Volume II Op.Sol. on Indian Affairs 1930 (U.S.D.I.1979)). In summary, I would hold the Tribes may use their water, whether it falls into the category of historic water or future water, for any purpose they deem to be to their benefit. In this specific instance, there is no question but that an instream flow is a benefit to the Tribes as well as the public in general. If the appellants, including the State of Wyoming, feel aggrieved by the Tribes' use of their water, they must go to the district court and prove their case and get an order from that court before the flow of the water may be stopped. It is as simple as that. I would earnestly hope that the district court will always perceive the simplicity of the meaning of the Tribes' right to their adjudicated water and shun conjurations, as it did here, which seek to deny implementation of the adjudication. In some instances, such as the implementation of the Brown [4] school desegregation case, timeand time again may be made available by the courts to provide transition. Considerable time has already elapsed in this case. There will, no doubt, be additional refinements to be made in the decree in the future. But the status of the law is now clear in this matter. The Tribes have a property right in their adjudicated water and the law securing and protecting it, and those charged with its enforcement must give that property right and that law effect now.