High Court Rules in Favor of Tribe in Dispute Over Water

American Indians won a rare victory in the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as the justices allowed the Quechan tribe to pursue its claim to about 25.6 billion gallons of Colorado River water each year.

Arizona and California had asked the high court to block the Quechan water claim, saying that the tribe gave up any rights to that water in 1983. Lawyers for both states had warned that a victory for the tribe could aggravate potential water shortages as the desert region continues to outgrow its limited water supply.

By a 6-3 vote, the high court ruled that the Quechan tribe should get a chance to prove that it owns 25,000 acres on the Fort Yuma Reservation straddling the river in California and Arizona. If the tribe owns the land, it would be entitled to enough water to irrigate the tract--about enough to serve the residential water needs of a city the size of Tucson, Ariz.

The amount of water involved is actually very small--less than 1% of the river’s annual flow, said David Harding Getches, a law professor at the University of Colorado who specializes in water and Indian issues.

“It won’t lead to any thirsty people or even any brown golf courses in Southern California,” Getches said Monday. “This is not a lot of water.”

But the ruling is a big victory for the tribe, given that Indians lose about 80% of the time at the Supreme Court, Getches said.

“This is really a drop in the bucket of the Colorado, but extremely important to the tribe because it [could] more than double their allocation” of water, said the Quechans’ lawyer, Mason Morisset.

Arizona and California argued that the Quechans gave up any rights to additional water when they accepted a $15-million land claim settlement in 1983.

Writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it was not clear whether the payment was for the land itself or just to compensate the tribe for not being able to use the land since the late 1800s. Monday’s ruling sends the issue back to court-appointed special master Frank McGarr, who will decide whether the tribe owns the land and should have rights to more water.

“We’re pleased that . . . the Quechan tribe will be able to present their case,” said John Leshy, a top Interior Department lawyer. The department had sided with the tribe in the case.