Cite as: 515 U. S. 1 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
Wyoming's reliance on two of this Court's prior original cases is, at best, premature. Both cases were decided after trial, see Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46, 49, 105 (1907); Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U. S. 496, 518 (1906), and while both recognize that relief on the merits may turn on the equities, 206 U. S., at 104-105, 113-114; 200 U. S., at 522, the application of that principle to Nebraska's claim is not, as we have just stated, obvious at this point. We accordingly accept the Master's recommendation, Third Interim Report 41, and overrule Wyoming's fourth exception.
IV
Wyoming's Fourth Amended Cross-Claim seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and is aimed against the United States alone, alleging that federal management of reservoirs has contravened state and federal law as well as contracts governing water supply to individual users. Wyoming claims that "the United States has allocated storage water in a manner which (a) upsets the equitable balance on which the apportionment of natural flow was based, (b) results in the allocation of natural flow contrary to the provisions of the Decree . . . , (c) promotes inefficiency and waste of water contrary to federal and state law, (d) violates the contract rights of the North Platte Project Irrigation Districts and violates the provisions of the Warren Act, 43 U. S. C. § 523, . . . and (e) exceeds the limitations in the contracts under the Warren Act." App. to Third Interim Report E-11 to E-12. Wyoming alleges that this mismanagement has made "water shortages . . . more frequen[t] and . . . more severe, thereby causing injury to Wyoming and its water users." Id., at E-12.
The United States and Nebraska except to allowing Wyoming's cross-claim to proceed, for two reasons. They argue, first, that the decree expressly refrained from apportioning storage water, as distinct from natural flow, with the consequence that the violations alleged are not cognizable in an
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