398
Opinion of the Court
the apportionment of Colorado River water was governed by the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928, 43 U. S. C. § 617 et seq., and by contracts entered into by the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to the Act. We further agreed that the United States had reserved water rights for the five reservations under the doctrine of Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564 (1908). See Arizona I, 373 U. S., at 565, 599-601. Because the Tribes' water rights were effective as of the time each reservation was created, the rights were considered present perfected rights and given priority under the Act. Id., at 600. We also agreed with the Master that the reservations' water rights should be based on the amount of practicably irrigable acreage on each reservation and sustained his findings as to the relevant acreage for each reservation. Ibid. Those findings were incorporated in our decree of March 9, 1964, which specified the quantities and priorities of the water entitlements for the States, the United States, and the Tribes. Arizona v. California, 376 U. S. 340. The Court rejected as premature, however, Master Rifkind's recommendation to determine the disputed boundaries of the Fort Mojave and Colorado River Indian Reservations; we ordered, instead, that water rights for those two reservations "shall be subject to appropriate adjustment by agreement or decree of this Court in the event that the boundaries of the respective reservations are finally determined." Id., at 345.
In 1978, the United States and the State parties jointly moved this Court to enter a supplemental decree identifying present perfected rights to the use of mainstream water in each State and their priority dates. The Tribes then filed motions to intervene, and the United States ultimately joined the Tribes in moving for additional water rights for the five reservations. Again, the Court deferred resolution of reservation boundary disputes and allied water rights claims. The supplemental decree we entered in 1979 set out the water rights and priority dates for the five reservations
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