22
Opinion of the Court
apart from his interest in a class with all other citizens and creatures of the state, which interest is not properly represented by the state." New Jersey v. New York, 345 U. S. 369, 373 (1953); cf. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 24(a)(2). We have said on many occasions that water disputes among States may be resolved by compact or decree without the participation of individual claimants, who nonetheless are bound by the result reached through representation by their respective States. Nebraska I, 325 U. S., at 627, citing Hinder-lider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U. S. 92, 106-108 (1938); see also Wyoming v. Colorado, 286 U. S. 494, 508-509 (1932). As we view the litigation at the current time, it is unlikely to present occasion for individual storage contract holders to show that their proprietary interests are not adequately represented by their State.
Two caveats are nonetheless in order, despite our allowance of Wyoming's cross-claim. Nebraska argues that Wyoming is using its cross-claim as a back door to achieving the mass allocation of natural flows sought in its First Counter-claim and Cross-Claim. This argument will be difficult to assess without further development of the merits, and we can only emphasize at this point that in allowing Wyoming's Fourth Cross-Claim to go forward, we are not, of course, in any way sanctioning the very modification of the decree that we have just ruled out in this proceeding. Second, the parties should not take our allowance of the Fourth Cross-Claim as an opportunity to enquire into every detail of the United States's administration of storage water contracts. The United States's contractual compliance is not, of itself, an appropriate subject of the Special Master's attention, which is properly confined to the effects of contract administration on the operation of the decree. Contractual compliance, as such, is the subject of the Goshen litigation, which we presume will move forward independently of this original action.
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