Opinion ID: 105730
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: application of the reclamation laws to the contracts.

Text: At the outset we set aside as not necessary to decision here the question of title to or vested rights in unappropriated water. Cf. Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U. S. 589, 611-616 (1945). If the rights held by the United States are insufficient, then it must acquire those necessary to carry on the project, United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., supra, at 739, paying just compensation therefor, either through condemnation or, if already taken, through action of the owners in the courts. As we see it, the authority to impose the conditions of the contracts here comes from the power of the Congress to condition the use of federal funds, works, and projects on compliance with reasonable requirements. And, again, if the enforcement of those conditions impairs any compensable property rights, then recourse for just compensation is open in the courts. As we have noted, the Supreme Court of California first concluded that the provisions of § 8 of the 1902 Act as to the application of state law were absolute, and controlled all provisions of the Act and other reclamation statutes having to do with the control, appropriation, use, or distribution of water used in irrigation, or any vested right acquired thereunder . . . . We believe this erroneous insofar as the substantive provisions of § 5 of the 1902 Act are concerned. As we read § 8, it merely requires the United States to comply with state law when, in the construction and operation of a reclamation project, it becomes necessary for it to acquire water rights or vested interests therein. But the acquisition of water rights must not be confused with the operation of federal projects. As the Court said in Nebraska v. Wyoming, supra, at 615: We do not suggest that where Congress has provided a system of regulation for federal projects it must give way before an inconsistent state system. Section 5 is a specific and mandatory prerequisite laid down by the Congress as binding in the operation of reclamation projects, providing that [n]o right to the use of water . . . shall be sold for a tract exceeding one hundred and sixty acres to any one landowner . . . . We read nothing in § 8 that compels the United States to deliver water on conditions imposed by the State. To read § 8 to the contrary would require the Secretary to violate § 5, the provisions of which, as we shall see, have been national policy for over half a century. Without passing generally on the coverage of § 8 in the delicate area of federal-state relations in the irrigation field, we do not believe that the Congress intended § 8 to override the repeatedly reaffirmed national policy of § 5. From the beginning of the federal reclamation program in 1902, the policy as declared by the Congress has been one requiring that the benefits therefrom be made available to the largest number of people, consistent, of course, with the public good. This policy has been accomplished by limiting the quantity of land in a single ownership to which project water might be supplied. It has been applied to public land opened up for entry under the reclamation law as well as privately owned lands, which might receive project water. See Taylor, The Excess Land Law: Execution of a Public Policy, 64 Yale L. J. 477. Significantly, where a particular project has been exempted because of its peculiar circumstances, the Congress has always made such exemption by express enactment. See Act of September 3, 1954, 68 Stat. 1190, exempting the Santa Maria Project from the applicability of excess land laws. [8] With respect to the Central Valley Project the Congress has again and again reaffirmed the specific requirements of § 5 and the action taken by the Secretary thereunder. As late as 1944 on consideration of the Omnibus Rivers and Harbors Bill the Senate refused, after vigorous debate, to concur in a conference report that would have exempted this project from the excess land requirements of § 5. 90 Cong Rec. 9493-9499. At the next Session of the Congress the disputed exemption was deleted from the bill and it was promptly passed. Likewise, the Secretary reported to the Congress from time to time the execution of contracts, similar to those involved here, wherein the excess land limitations and other requirements of law are fully incorporated in the Central Valley contract form. His annual report for 1950 and 1951 related the execution of the Madera, Ivanhoe, and Santa Barbara contracts involved here. In the latter report he mentions individual contracts with water users under the excess land laws, advising that these laws were given active attention. Five recordable contracts providing for delivery of Central Valley Project water to 3,570 acres of excess land are the first to be executed on the project. During this period the Congress reauthorized the project, additional units were added, see Act of October 14, 1949, 63 Stat. 852; H. R. Doc. No. 416, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 620-622; Act of September 26, 1950, 64 Stat. 1036, and the Act of August 12, 1955, 69 Stat. 719; H. R. Doc. No. 416, pp. 937-940, and large appropriations of funds thereto were granted annually. In light of these congressional actions, it cannot be said that Congress intended that § 8 would, under the application of state law, make inapplicable the excess lands provisions of § 5 of the Reclamation Act of 1902 to the Central Valley Project. That possibility is foreclosed by subsequent and continuing action by the Congress ever since the inception of the project. Such a record constitutes ratification of administrative construction, and confirmation and approval of the contracts. Fleming v. Mohawk Co., 331 U. S. 111, 119 (1947); Brooks v. Dewar, 313 U. S. 354, 361 (1941); Swayne & Hoyt, Ltd., v. United States, 300 U. S. 297, 302 (1937).