Nebraska v. Wyoming, 515 U.S. 1, 11 (1995)

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Cite as: 515 U. S. 1 (1995)

Opinion of the Court

its share among its canals as it sees fit." Id., at 603, citing Nebraska I, supra, at 667.

These conclusions about our 1945 decision and decree expose the true nature of Wyoming's amended claims. Simply put, Wyoming seeks to replace a simple apportionment scheme with one in which Nebraska's share would be capped at the volume of probable beneficial use, presumably to Wyoming's advantage. Wyoming thus seeks nothing less than relitigation of the "main controversy" of the 1945 litigation, the equitable apportionment of irrigation-season flows in the North Platte's pivotal reach. See 325 U. S., at 637-638. Under any circumstance, we would be profoundly reluctant to revisit such a central question supposedly resolved 50 years ago, and there can be no temptation to do so here, in the absence of any allegation of a change in conditions that might warrant reexamining the decree's apportionment scheme. Wyoming's first exception is overruled.1

B

Counts I and III of Nebraska's Amended Petition would have us modify the decree to enjoin proposed developments by Wyoming on the North Platte's tributaries, see App. to Third Interim Report D-4 to D-6, D-9 to D-11, on the the-1 The Master explicitly noted that his recommendation should not be understood as foreclosing Wyoming from litigating discrete matters captured within its First Amended Counterclaim and the First Amended Cross-Claim that do not involve relitigation of the 1945 decision but rather go to the enforcement of the decree. Third Amended Report 63. Specifically, these matters include Wyoming's claim that Nebraska has circumvented the decree by calling for upstream flows for the use of irrigators diverting water below the Tri-State Dam; Wyoming's claim of waste by pivotal reach irrigators offered as a defense to Nebraska's objections to Wyoming uses upstream; and Wyoming's claim that Nebraska canal calls and natural flow diversions by the United States contravene priorities established in Paragraph IV of the decree. Id., at 63-64. Neither the United States nor Nebraska has objected to the Master's recommendation in this respect.

11

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