284
Opinion of the Court
ing a declaration of its water rights, the appointment of a water master, and an order enjoining all uses and diversions of water by other parties. See Pet. for Cert. in Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, O. T. 1974, No. 74-940, pp. 39a-40a. The District Court dismissed the action in deference to ongoing state proceedings. The Court of Appeals reversed, 504 F. 2d 115 (CA10 1974), on the ground that the District Court had jurisdiction over the Government's suit and that abstention was inappropriate. This Court reversed again. Without discussing Brillhart, the Court began with the premise that federal courts have a "virtually unflagging obligation" to exercise the jurisdiction conferred on them by Congress. Colorado River, supra, at 813, 817-818, citing Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 404 (1821). The Court determined, however, that a district court could nonetheless abstain from the assumption of jurisdiction over a suit in "exceptional" circumstances, and it found such exceptional circumstances on the facts of the case. 424 U. S., at 818-820. Specifically, the Court deemed dispositive a clear federal policy against piecemeal adjudication of water rights; the existence of an elaborate state scheme for resolution of such claims; the absence of any proceedings in the District Court, other than the filing of the complaint, prior to the motion to dismiss; the extensive nature of the suit; the 300-mile distance between the District Court and the situs of the water district at issue; and the prior participation of the Federal Government in related state proceedings.
Two years after Colorado River we decided Will v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co., 437 U. S. 655 (1978), in which a plurality of the Court stated that, while " 'the pendency of an action in the state court is no bar to proceedings concerning the same matter in the Federal court having jurisdiction,' " id., at 662, quoting McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268, 282 (1910), a district court is " 'under no compulsion to exercise that jurisdiction,' " 437 U. S., at 662, quoting Brillhart, 316
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