430
Opinion of the Court
"Nor do the terms 'flood' and 'flood waters' create any uncertainty in the context of accidents such as the ones at issue in these cases. The Act concerns flood control projects designed to carry floodwaters. It is thus clear from § 702c's plain language that the terms 'flood' and 'flood waters' apply to all waters contained in or carried through a federal flood control project for purposes of or related to flood control, as well as to waters that such projects cannot control." Id., at 605 (emphasis added).4
The sentence that we have italicized and, in particular, the phrase "related to flood control" have generated conflicting opinions among the Courts of Appeals. In an attempt to make sense of what is admittedly confusing dicta, some courts have focused on whether the damage relates in some, often tenuous, way to a flood control project, rather than whether it relates to "floods or flood waters." 5 However,
4 The Court appended a footnote pointing out that the District Court in each case had found that the waters at issue had been "released from federal flood control facilities to prevent flooding" and that the Court of Appeals had upheld those findings "and assumed that 'the waters in this [consolidated] case were floodwaters.' " See id., at 606, n. 7.
5 See, e. g., Washington v. East Columbia Basin Irrigation Dist., 105 F. 3d 517 (CA9 1997); Williams v. United States, 957 F. 2d 742 (CA10 1992); Dawson v. United States, 894 F. 2d 70 (CA3 1990); DeWitt Bank & Trust Co. v. United States, 878 F. 2d 246 (CA8 1989). This approach, however, can be overinclusive. As Judge Easterbrook has pointed out: "The 'management of a flood control project' includes building roads to reach the beaches and hiring staff to run the project. If the Corps of Engineers should allow a walrus-sized pothole to swallow tourists' cars on the way to the beach, or if a tree-trimmer's car should careen through some picnickers, these injuries would be 'associated with' flood control. They would occur within the boundaries of the project, and but for the effort to curtail flooding the injuries would not have happened. Yet they would have nothing to do with management of flood waters, and it is hard to conceive that they are 'damage from or by floods or flood waters' within the scope of § 702c.' " Fryman v. United States, 901 F. 2d, at 81. More
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