Opinion ID: 2602225
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Wind River Irrigation ProjectIntended to Benefit Allottees and Their Successors

Text: [¶ 24] The unsuccessful claimants assert the irrigation project, permitted through the state by an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was intended to facilitate beneficial use of the reserved water rights. The record strongly supports the conclusion the federal government's construction of the project and compliance with Wyoming state water law requirements were intended to allow beneficial use of the Indian reserved rights. The original applications for permits to divert, executed by Mr. Wadsworth as superintendent and special disbursing agent of the Shoshone Agency, indicate he is the applicant in his official capacity and the use to which the water will be applied is the irrigation of Indian lands hereinafter described. In a letter to the state engineer dated October 10, 1918, W.S. Hanna, the supervising engineer of the United States Indian Irrigation Service, succinctly explained the policy reasons behind the Indian Irrigation Service's many filings in observance of Wyoming state law: My understanding [6] of the Indian Service attitude in this matter is briefly as follows. Various court decisions have established beyond dispute the prior rights of the Indians to sufficient water for the irrigation of their lands. The filing of requests for permits and requests for extensions of time for proof of beneficial use in compliance with the Wyoming State laws has been systematically followed out. This plan of procedure was suggested in the Act of 1905 which [c]eded a portion of the original Indian Reservation. In my opinion the object of this proce[ ]dure is two-fold-viz. Giving public notice of the prior rights of the Indians and the protection of the water rights of purchasers of Indian lands by permitting such purchasers to submit to your office proof of beneficial use and to receive certificate designating the date of the original filing as their priority date. The latter is of extreme importance as large areas [of] the Indian irrigated lands are rapidly passing into white ownership and it is imperative that water rights and especially priorities of water rights be protected as practically the entire value of this land for agricultural purposes is dependent on the validity of the water right. .... ... [T]racts are constantly being sold to white men and in order to safe-guard the interests of these white men and allow them, after purchasing the land, to have sufficient time in which to make proof of beneficial use, we wish to secure any necessary extensions of time for proof of beneficial use in accordance with the Wyoming State laws. This letter was written after the Winters case made it clear the Indians had reserved rights in the treaties which would be extremely valuable given their early priority date. [¶ 25] From the beginning, the United States government's clear purpose was to protect and provide water to the Indian lands. The requests for extensions were also intended to permit the non-Indian purchasers to maintain the water rights they acquired from the Indian allottees by allowing beneficial use when the water was finally available through development of the project. Furthermore, the United States government dealt with the project and lands within the project as single enterprise as evidenced by the affidavit of Louis Twitchell, former project manager and an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Irrigation Department for over thirty years. Of particular note, Mr. Twichell's affidavit reflects: 4. In 1957, the BIA was still developing and constructing project structures pursuant to the original permit applications submitted to the State of Wyoming in 1905. A lot of laterals to serve the project lands were built after 1957. 5. Any preexisting private ditches that may have served the lands under this claim were subsumed into the project when the project encompassed those lands. If lands were classified under the project as assessable, those lands have to pay their pro rata share of the project assessments. 6. All of the BIA ditches are run as one project. Money collected for operation and maintenance charges are spent project wide. [¶ 26] This evidence demonstrates the project was intended to irrigate all the lands within the project. Though progress was incremental, it was evident and frequently reported to state water officials. Any private ditches were subsumed by the project when it encompassed the land upon which those ditches were located. One can infer whatever individual expense and effort were made to put private ditches in place pending arrival of the project facilities would be a temporary benefit to be replaced by the project facilities. Moreover, those assessable properties within the project were financially invested in the construction through their pro rata share of project assessments. [¶ 27] The tribes argued that the non-Indian successors did not rely upon the existence of the reserved rights when they purchased the allotments. While the legal significance of that fact is arguable, history suggests the opposite. The letter from the project proponents specifically noted the value of the Indian rights as a direct result of the court decisions recognizing such rights, and, without water, the allottees' lands would be valueless. On the other side of the transaction, the non-Indian buyer certainly had notice of the existence of those rights and the on-going irrigation project that would allow those rights to be realized. It stands to reason the value of the lands within the project area increased after 1905 with the proposed construction of the federal irrigation project. Accordingly, it must be assumed that most, if not all, sales of allotments within the project area after that time were with the expectation project waters would ultimately be available to those parcels for irrigation. [¶ 28] A fundamental precept of the doctrine of reserved rights and the General Allotment Act of 1887 was to allow Indians owning allotted lands to sell the property in fee for full value conveying therewith the appurtenant water rights to the same extent non-Indians could sell fee lands with appurtenant water rights. Absent that, the right to sell the land would be all but worthless to the Indian allottee. Walton I, 460 F.Supp. at 1328; Big Horn I, 753 P.2d at 112-13. By the same reasoning, it is incongruent on one hand to hold the Indian allottees could sell their reserved water rights with their lands for full value but on the other hand to effectively render the reserved rights worthless because, at the time of transfer, the irrigation project which would allow beneficial use of the reserved water was incomplete. Recognizing that we find ourselves at a place in history which requires us to presume what parties would have intended almost a century ago while at the same time knowing they were not sufficiently clairvoyant to foresee the courts' development of the requirements for a Walton right, we conclude the irrigation project, which allowed exploitation of the Indian reserved rights, had to have had an effect on both the value paid and received for the allotments and the actions on the part of the individual non-Indian successors to develop the water rights received with their purchases. The project was constructed to benefit the reserved rights, and our application of the diligence test required for Walton claims must reflect that reality. [¶ 29] Relying on the due diligence of others to qualify for a water right essentially by proxy finds support in Wyoming case law: A man cannot apply for water, or divert it, for idle purposes. He must claim it, if he wants to separate it from the unappropriated body of water. But the claim need not, we think, be personal in the sense that no one else can reap the benefit thereof. That was virtually held in Rutherford v. Lucerne Canal & Power Company, 12 Wyo. 299, 313, 75 P. 445. In that case one Pratt made the application and received the permit. The Lucerne Canal & Power Company, which he and others organized, adopted it, proceeded under it, though it was not assigned to it, and diverted the water pursuant thereto. The court held that a third party could not take advantage of the fact that Pratt did not personally fulfill the requirements of the permit. A ditch company in Colorado which diverts water is treated as an intermediate agent for the ultimate user of the water. Farmers' High Line Canal & Reservoir Company v. Southworth, 13 Colo. 111, 130, 21 P. 1028, 4 L.R.A. 767; Wyatt v. Larimer & Weld Irrigation Co., 18 Colo. 298, 308, 33 P. 144, 36 Am. St. Rep. 280. The water user, in such case, receives the benefit of the intent of the ditch company. After all,... no matter who may initiate the right, if it is perfected the general purpose of an appropriation is accomplished.... No good reason, accordingly, appears, if the law is complied with in other respects, why a man should be forbidden to act as volunteer for another in connection with the steps leading up to a perfected appropriation. Scherck v. Nichols, 55 Wyo. 4, 95 P.2d 74, 79 (1939) (some citations omitted & emphasis added). The district court's decision as a matter of law to ignore the diligence demonstrated by the project on behalf of the claimants was erroneous.