Cite as: 530 U. S. 392 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
under the 1964 decree, but added that the rights for all five reservations (including the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation at issue here) "shall continue to 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." Arizona v. California, 439 U. S. 419, 421 (per curiam). The Court then appointed Senior Circuit Judge Elbert P. Tuttle as Special Master and referred to him the Tribes' motions to intervene and other pending matters.
Master Tuttle issued a report recommending that the Tribes be permitted to intervene, and concluding that various administrative actions taken by the Secretary of the Interior constituted "final determinations" of reservation boundaries for purposes of allocating water rights under the 1964 decree. (Those administrative actions included a 1978 Secretarial Order, discussed in greater detail infra, at 404- 405, which recognized the Quechan Tribe's entitlement to the disputed boundary lands of the Fort Yuma Reservation.) Master Tuttle also concluded that certain lands within the undisputed reservation boundaries but for which the United States had not sought water rights in Arizona I—the so-called "omitted lands"—had in fact been practicably irrigable at the time of Arizona I and were thus entitled to water. On these grounds, Master Tuttle recommended that the Court reopen the 1964 decree to award the Tribes additional water rights.
In Arizona v. California, 460 U. S. 605 (1983) (Arizona II), the Court permitted the Tribes to intervene, but otherwise rejected Master Tuttle's recommendations. The Secretary's determinations did not qualify as "final determinations" of reservation boundaries, we ruled, because the States, agencies, and private water users had not had an opportunity to obtain judicial review of those determinations. Id., at 636-637. In that regard, we noted that California state agencies had initiated an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California chal-
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