432
Opinion of the Court
holding in James also differs from the less attenuated and more fact-specific position advanced by the Government, which would require us to take judicial notice of evidence that the Friant Division of the Central Valley Project and, indeed, the Madera Canal itself can and do serve flood control purposes. We ultimately conclude that the judgment cannot be upheld under either rationale, but begin with a description of the Central Valley Project and an explanation of the factual basis for the Government's submission.
III
We begin by observing that water can be either a liability or an asset. The Mississippi River flood of 1927 was unquestionably an example of the former. That flood in turn led to the enactment of the 1928 Flood Control Act. Similar, though less extreme, floods of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers in California provided an important motivation for the authorization of the Central Valley Project. Although that project has not completely eliminated flooding on either river, it has succeeded in converting a huge liability into an immensely valuable asset. Justice Jackson described the magnitude of that transformation in his opinion for the Court in United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725 (1950):
"This is a gigantic undertaking to redistribute the principal fresh-water resources of California. Central Valley is a vast basin, stretching over 400 miles on its polar axis and a hundred in width, in the heart of California. Bounded by the Sierra Nevada on the east and by coastal ranges on the west, it consists actually of two separate river valleys which merge in a single pass to the sea at the Golden Gate. Its rich acres, counted in the millions, are deficient in rainfall and must remain generally arid and unfruitful unless artificially watered.
. . . . .
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007