Opinion ID: 789644
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reserved Water Rights Claim

Text: 30 The Tribe also sues on the theory that the City has violated water rights that were impliedly reserved to the Tribe when it entered into the Treaty with the United States. 31 In Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 28 S.Ct. 207, 52 L.Ed. 340 (1908), the Supreme Court held that federal reservations of public land can sometimes carry implied property rights in appurtenant waters. While many of the contours of what has come to be called the `implied-reservation-of-water doctrine' remain unspecified, the Court has repeatedly emphasized that [the United States] reserved `only that amount of water necessary to fulfill the purpose of the reservation, no more.' United States v. New Mexico, 438 U.S. 696, 700, 98 S.Ct. 3012, 57 L.Ed.2d 1052 (1978) (quoting Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 141, 96 S.Ct. 2062, 48 L.Ed.2d 523 (1976)). The Court has found implied water rights stemming from a reservation of public land only where without the water the purposes of the reservation would be entirely defeated. Id. But [w]here water is only valuable for a secondary use of the reservation, ... there arises the contrary inference that [the United States] intended, consistent with its other views, that the [reservation] would acquire water in the same manner as any other public or private appropriator. Id. at 702, 98 S.Ct. 3012. 32 The district court concluded that the water diverted by the City was not necessary for any primary purpose of the reservation. The Tribe argues that this was error, contending that the City has infringed upon its implied water rights in the Skokomish River by impeding its ability to fish. We agree with the district court that the Tribe cannot survive summary judgment with its claim that fishing was a primary purpose of the reservation. 33 The Tribe directs us to submitted declarations from a historian and a cultural anthropologist, but these declarations only suggest that fishing was important to the Tribe, and that the United States intended to ensure the Tribe was not excluded from its fisheries. Demonstrating that the United States intended for the Tribe to continue fishing on the reservation is not the same as showing that fishing was a primary purpose of the reservation. Cf. id. at 716, 98 S.Ct. 3012 (While Congress intended the national forests to be put to a variety of uses, including stockwatering, not inconsistent with the two principal purposes of the forests, stockwatering was not itself a direct purpose of reserving the land.); id. at 716-17, 98 S.Ct. 3012 (Congress, of course, did intend to secure favorable water flows, and one of the uses to which the enhanced water supply was intended to be placed was probably stockwatering. But Congress intended the water supply from the Rio Mimbres to be allocated among private appropriators under state law.). 34 Nor does the Treaty language help the Tribe. The Treaty merely provides that the Tribe shall have [t]he right of taking fish ... in common with all citizens of the United States. Treaty, art. 4. This language distinguishes our case from United States v. Adair, 723 F.2d 1394 (9th Cir.1983), where we based our finding of implied water rights in part on treaty language expressly provid[ing] that the[plaintiff Indian Tribe] will have exclusive on-reservation fishing and gathering rights. See id. at 1409 (emphasis added). The Treaty language in this case cannot make up for the inadequacy of the evidence the Tribe has presented. 35 We thus conclude that the district court properly granted summary judgment for defendants on the Tribe's reserved water rights claim.