392
OCTOBER TERM, 1999
Syllabus
on exceptions to report of special master
No. 8, Orig. Argued April 25, 2000—Decided June 19, 2000
This litigation began in 1952 when Arizona invoked this Court's original jurisdiction to settle a dispute with California over the extent of each State's right to use water from the Colorado River system. The United States intervened, seeking water rights on behalf of, among others, five Indian reservations, including the Fort Yuma (Quechan) Indian Reservation, the Colorado River Indian Reservation, and the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. The first round of the litigation culminated in Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 (Arizona I), in which the Court held that the United States had reserved water rights for the five reservations, id., at 565, 599-601; that those rights must be considered present perfected rights and given priority because they were effective as of the time each reservation was created, id., at 600; and that those rights should be based on the amount of each reservation's practicably irrigable acreage as determined by the Special Master, ibid. In its 1964 decree, the Court specified the quantities and priorities of the water entitlements for the parties and the Tribes, Arizona v. California, 376 U. S. 340, but held that the water rights for the Fort Mojave and Colorado River Reservations would be subject to appropriate adjustment by future agreement or decree in the event the respective reservations' disputed boundaries were finally determined, id., at 345. The Court's 1979 supplemental decree again deferred resolution of reservation boundary disputes and allied water rights claims. Arizona v. California, 439 U. S. 419, 421 (per curiam). In Arizona v. California, 460 U. S. 605 (Arizona II), the Court concluded, among other things, that various administrative actions taken by the Secretary of the Interior, including his 1978 order recognizing the entitlement of the Quechan Tribe (Tribe) to the disputed boundary lands of the Fort Yuma Reservation did not constitute final determinations of reservation boundaries for purposes of the 1964 decree. Id., at 636-638. The Court also held in Arizona II that certain lands within undisputed reservation boundaries, for which the United States had not sought water rights in Arizona I—the so-called "omitted lands"—were not entitled to water under res judicata principles. 460 U. S., at 626. The Court's 1984 supplemental decree again declared that water rights for all five reservations would be subject to appropriate adjustments if the reservations' boundaries were finally determined. Arizona v. California, 466 U. S.
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