Opinion ID: 1161875
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: THE McCARRAN AMENDMENT REQUIRES THE INCLUSION OF THE BOISE RIVER AND WEISER RIVER IN THIS ADJUDICATION.

Text: The necessity for the inclusion of all tributaries of the Snake River in order to obtain jurisdiction over the United States is made clear by the legislative and judicial history of the McCarran Amendment. When the language that now comprises 43 U.S.C. § 666 was proposed in the United States Senate by Senator McCarran, the report accompanying the bill stated: The purpose of the proposed legislation, as amended, is to permit the joinder of the United States as a party defendant in any suit for the adjudication of rights to the use of water of a river system or other source or for the administration of such rights where it appears that the United States is the owner or is in the process of acquiring water rights by appropriation under State law, by purchase, exchange, or otherwise and that the United States is a necessary party to such suit. ... . It is most clear that where water rights have been adjudicated by a court and its final decree entered, or where such rights are in the course of adjudication by a court, the court adjudicating or having adjudicated such rights is the court possessing the jurisdiction to enter its orders and decrees with respect thereto and thereafter to enforce the same by appropriate proceedings. In the administration of and the adjudication of water rights under State laws the State courts are vested with the jurisdiction necessary for the proper and efficient disposition thereof, and by reason of the interlocking of adjudicated rights on any stream system, any order or action affecting one right affects all such rights. Accordingly all water users on a stream, in practically every case, are interested and necessary parties to any court proceeding. It is apparent that if any water user claiming to hold such right by reason of the ownership thereof by the United States or any of its departments is permitted to claim immunity from suit in, or orders of, a State court, such claims could materially interfere with the lawful and equitable use of water for beneficial use by the other water users who are amenable to and bound by the decrees and orders of the State courts. Unless congress has removed such immunity by statutory enactment, the bar of immunity from suits still remains and any judgment or decree of the State court is ineffective as to the water right held by the United States. Congress has not removed the bar of immunity even in its own courts in suits wherein water rights acquired under State law are drawn in question. The bill ... was introduced for the very purpose of correcting this situation and the evils growing out of such immunity. ... . Since it is clear that the States have the control of the water within their boundaries, it is essential that each and every owner along a given water course, including the United States, must be amenable to the law of the State, if there is to be a proper administration of the water law as it has developed over the years. S.Rep. No. 755, 82d Cong. 1st Sess. 2, 4-6 (1951). (Emphasis added.) In correspondence with Senator Magnuson in 1951, Senator McCarran stated that the language now comprising the McCarran Amendment was not intended to be used for any other purpose than to allow the United States to be joined in a suit wherein it is necessary to adjudicate all of the rights of various owners on a given stream. Id. at 9. In 1956 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals referred to the type of adjudication required by the McCarran Amendment: The only proper method of adjudicating the rights on a stream, whether riparian or appropriative or mixed, is to have all owners of lands on the watershed and all appropriators who use water from the streams involved in another watershed in court at the same time. People of State of California v. United States, 235 F.2d 647, 663 (9th Cir.1956). The next year the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in discussing the type of suit to which the McCarran Amendment referred stated: The United States has not given its consent to be joined as a defendant in every suit involving water rights. It may be made a party only in suits for the adjudication of rights to the use of water of a river system or other source. There can be an adjudication of rights with respect to the upper Rio Grande only in a proceeding where all persons who have rights are before the tribunal. Miller v. Jennings, 243 F.2d 157, 159 (5th Cir.1957). Four years later the 9th Circuit again addressed the McCarran Amendment: There can be little doubt as to the type of suit congress had in mind. It was not a private dispute between certain water users as to their conflicting rights to the use of waters of a stream system; rather, it was the quasi-public proceeding which in the law of western waters is known as a general adjudication of a stream system: one in which the rights of all claimants on a stream system, as between themselves, are ascertained and officially stated. State of California v. Rank, 293 F.2d 340, 347 (9th Cir.1961) rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Dugan v. Rank, 372 U.S. 609, 83 S.Ct. 999, 10 L.Ed.2d 15 (1963). In Dugan v. Rank the United States Supreme Court held that an action to enjoin officials of the Bureau of Reclamation from impounding water at a federal dam on the San Joaquin River was not the type of general adjudication of `all of the rights of various owners on a given stream,' but that it was a private suit to determine water rights solely between the respondents and the United States and the local Reclamation Bureau officials. 372 U.S. at 618, 83 S.Ct. at 1005 (citations omitted). In reaching this conclusion the court relied specifically on the fact that all claimants to water rights along the river are not made parties. 372 U.S. at 618, 83 S.Ct. at 1005. Recently, the 9th Circuit has stated: The McCarran amendment ... does not authorize private suits to decide priorities between the United States and particular claimants, only suits to adjudicate the rights of all claimants on a stream. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California v. United States, 830 F.2d 139, 144 (9th Cir.1987), ( citing Dugan v. Rank ). This history of the McCarran Amendment and the interpretations that the federal courts have given to it convince us that in order for the United States to be subject to the jurisdiction of the trial court in the Snake River basin adjudication, the rights of all claimants on the Snake River and all of its tributaries within the state of Idaho must be included in the adjudication. The irrigation districts and the water districts that have appealed the inclusion of the Boise River and Weiser River in this adjudication contend that other court decisions interpreting the McCarran Amendment indicate that not all tributaries of a river system within a state must be included in a general adjudication under the McCarran Amendment. They rely heavily upon two decisions of the United States Supreme Court concerning the adjudication of water rights in Colorado. United States v. District Court, County of Eagle, 401 U.S. 520, 91 S.Ct. 998, 28 L.Ed.2d 278 (1971) and United States v. District Court, Water Division No. 5, Colorado, 401 U.S. 527, 91 S.Ct. 1003, 28 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971). Neither of these cases is in conflict with our decision here. The opinions in those cases must be read in light of the system of adjudication of water rights that is unique to Colorado. In the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court that was reviewed by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. District Court, County of Eagle , Colorado, the Colorado court described this unique system: The following are considered as the appropriation states with respect to water adjudications: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. With the exception of Colorado all of the appropriation states have a statewide system of adjudicating priorities or issuing permits for the use of water. Until 1969 Colorado throughout its history has been divided into water districts and adjudicated priorities have been determined within each district. In 1969 the General Assembly of Colorado adopted Senate Bill 81 amending C.R.S. 1963, 148-21-1 et. seq. which consolidates the 70 water districts of the state into seven divisions, each of which embraces an entire river drainage area within the state. ... . As the Government points out, priorities to the use of water are established by decrees of our district courts in the several water districts. Under our statutes there can be an original adjudication culminating in a decree fixing these priorities. Thereafter there can be a supplemental adjudication to establish priorities to the use of water not decreed in the original proceedings. There is no limit to the number of successive supplementary proceedings that may be had. The earliest priority granted in any supplemental adjudication must be later than the last priority established by the next preceding adjudication. (Citation omitted.) Those appropriating water within the water district involved who were not served personally or by mail with notice of the proceedings are barred from attacking a decree after the lapse of two years. Those outside the water district may bring an action to adjust priority rights as between different districts within four years from the time of rendition of a decree having effect thereon. (Citation omitted.) In practically all of the districts in Colorado, prior to the adoption of the McCarran amendment in 1952, there had been not only original adjudications but supplementary adjudications. United States v. District Court in and for County of Eagle, 169 Colo. 555, 458 P.2d 760, 762-63 (1969), aff'd. 401 U.S. 520, 91 S.Ct. 998, 28 L.Ed.2d 278 (1971). While it is true that the United States Supreme Court agreed with the Colorado Supreme Court that the Eagle River, a tributary of the Colorado River, could be adjudicated under the McCarran Amendment, even though other parts of the Colorado River system within Colorado were not adjudicated in the same proceeding, this decision must be read in light of the unique system of water adjudication that exists in Colorado. In United States v. District Court, Water Division No. 5, Colorado, the Supreme Court clarified why the adjudication by district or division under the unique Colorado system qualified as a general adjudication under the McCarran Amendment: The present suit, like the one in the Eagle County case, reaches all claims, perhaps month by month but inclusively in the totality; ... . 401 U.S. at 530, 91 S.Ct. at 1005. Even though the Gunnison River was excluded from the adjudication in water division 5, it was included in the adjudication of water division 4. Colo. Rev. Stat.Annot. § 37-92-201(1)(d) (1973). Thus, the Gunnison River was adjudicated under the McCarran Amendment as part of Colorado's unique system of determining water rights. When read in the context of the system of adjudication in Colorado, neither Eagle County nor Water Division No. 5 would support the exclusion of the Boise River or the Weiser River from this adjudication. We also reject the argument of the appellant irrigation and water districts that McCarran Amendment jurisdiction would exist if the Boise River and Weiser River sub-basins were excluded, because the main stem of the Snake River which forms the boundary between Idaho and Oregon and Washington is covered by the portion of the McCarran Amendment that refers to other source. The source of the water in the main stem of the Snake River is the river system. The term other source refers to sources other than a river system, such as lakes or ground waters. It would destroy the intent of the McCarran Amendment to allow a river system to be fragmented into separate sources in order to obtain jurisdiction over the United States.