Goshen Irrigation Dist. v. Pathfinder Irrigation
| Decision Date | 24 June 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-CV-161-J.,89-CV-161-J. |
| Citation | 62 F.Supp.2d 1218 |
| Parties | GOSHEN IRRIGATION DISTRICT, a Wyoming Irrigation District, Plaintiff, v. PATHFINDER IRRIGATION DISTRICT, a Nebraska Irrigation District; Gering and Fort Laramie Irrigation District, a Nebraska Irrigation District; and Northport Irrigation District, a Nebraska Irrigation District, Plaintiff-Intervenors. v. United States of America; U.S. Department of Interior; U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; Manuel Lujan, Jr., Secretary of the Interior; C. Dale Duvall, Commissioner of Reclamation; and Kenneth C. Randolph, Acting Project Manager, North Platte River Projects Office, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Defendants, Farmers Irrigation District, a public Corp.; Gering Irrigation District, a public Corp.; Chimney Rock Irrigation District, a public Corp.; and Lingle Water Users Association, a public Corp., Defendants-Intervenors. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Wyoming |
Kim D. Cannon, Davis & Cannon, Sheridan, WY, Kate M. Fox, Davis & Cannon, Cheyenne, WY, for Goshen Irrigation District, a Wyoming Irrigation District, plaintiff.
John A. Sundahl, Sundahl Powers Kapp & Martin, Cheyenne, WY, Steven C. Smith, Van Steenberg Chaloupka Mullin, Holyoke Pahlke Smith, Scottsbluff, NE, for Pathfinder Irrigation District, a Nebraska Irrigation Dist., Gering and Fort Laramie Irrigation Dist., Northport Irrigation Dist., intervenors.
Clark G. Nichols, Nichols Douglas & Kelly, Scottsbluff, NE, Kermit C. Brown, Brown Nagel Waters & Hiser, Rawlins, WY, for Farmers Irrigation District, a Public Corporation, Gering Irrigation
Dist., Chimney Rock Irrigation Dist., intervenors.
Keith G. Kautz, Sawyer & Warren, Torrington, WY, Brian B. Wells, Sigler and Smith Law Office, Torrington, WY, for Lingle Water Users Association, intervenor.
Carol A. Statkus, Asst. U.S. Atty., U.S. Attorney's Office, Cheyenne, WY, Vincent J. Horn, Jr., Littleton, CO, for United States of America, United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Manual Lujan, Jr., C. Dale Duvall, defendants.
Donald Mark Gerstein, Wyoming Attorney General, Cheyenne, WY, for State of Wyoming, amicus.
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Water is the life-blood of Wyoming and Nebraska, arid Western states. Consequently, they, like the rest of the West, were transformed by the Bureau of Reclamation's epic water storage projects. The question raised in this case is whether the irrigation districts of the Bureau's North Platte River Project have priority to the use of water stored in Pathfinder Reservoir in a drought year.
The drought year in question is 1989. The water rights in question arise under contracts for water stored in reservoirs built by the federal government along the North Platte River pursuant to the Reclamation Act. The contracts are between the federal government and the plaintiff Goshen Irrigation District (GID) and intervening plaintiffs (collectively the government districts) on one hand and between the Bureau and the intervening defendants (the Warren Act contractors) on the other hand. The lands irrigated by the irrigation districts are in Wyoming and Nebraska. The question that divides the parties arises only in drought, or short water years because then there is not enough stored water to provide the full amount of water the federal government, through the Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau), has contracted to deliver to all the parties.
The government districts acknowledge their contracts provide that in short water years the Bureau will divide the stored water pro rata among themselves. However, they contend that the Bureau exceeded its authority and breached its contracts with them when it included Warren Act contractors in the category of districts among which the insufficient water is to be divided. According to the government districts, their rights to the stored water have priority over the rights granted to the intervening defendants pursuant to Warren Act contracts.
The Bureau, the Department of the Interior, the United States and their named officials (collectively the federal defendants) contend that the contracts for stored water, government district contracts and Warren Act contracts alike, are ambiguous and therefore must be construed according to the understanding of the parties. According to the federal defendants, the understanding of the parties is that the Warren Act defendants are part of the North Platte Project with rights to the storage water of an equal footing to the rights of the government districts. The federal defendants also contend that the Bureau has the authority to make the disputed allocation.
The Warren Act contractors echo the position of the federal defendants, and, in addition, raise the affirmative defenses of waiver, estoppel and laches.
The court finds in favor of the government districts. The contracts are not ambiguous, the contracts provide the government districts with a first right to use the storage water, the government districts did not lose their first right by operation of estoppel, waiver or laches and the Bureau violated the government districts' contracts by the way it allocated storage water in 1989.
A brief review of the Bureau's North Platte Project and its topography is described in the case Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U.S. 589, 65 S.Ct. 1332, 89 L.Ed. 1815 (1945), and is helpful as general orientation:
The North Platte River rises in Northern Colorado in the mountainous region known as North Park. It proceeds in a northerly direction on the east side of the Continental Divide, enters Wyoming west of Cheyenne, and continues in a northerly direction to the vicinity of Casper. There it turns east across the Great Plains and proceeds easterly and southerly into and across Nebraska. About 40 miles west of the Nebraska line it is joined by the Laramie River. At North Platte, Nebraska, it is joined by the South Platte, forming the Platte River. It empties into the Missouri River at Plattsmouth, near the western border of Iowa. In North Park it is a rapid mountain stream. In eastern Wyoming it gradually broadens out, losing velocity. In western and central Nebraska its channel ranges from 3000 to 6000 feet; it frequently divides into small channels; and in times of low water is lost in the deep sands of its bed. Here it is sometimes characterized as a river "two miles wide and one inch deep."
There are six natural sections of the river basin: ... (3) Pathfinder Reservoir to Whalen, Wyoming which is 42 miles from the Nebraska line; (4) Whalen, Wyoming to the Tri-State Dam in Nebraska near the Wyoming-Nebraska line; ...
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The river basin in Colorado and Wyoming is arid, irrigation being generally indispensable to agriculture. Western Nebraska is partly arid and partly semiarid. Irrigation is indispensable to the kind of agriculture established there.
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Irrigation in the river basin began about 1865, when some projects were started in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. Between 1880 and 1890 irrigation began on a large scale. Until 1909 storage of water was negligible, irrigation being effected by direct diversions and use. Prior to 1909 the development in Colorado and Wyoming was relatively more rapid than in Nebraska. Since 1910 the acreage under irrigation in Colorado increased about 14 per cent, that of Wyoming 31 per cent, and that of Nebraska about 100 per cent. The large increase in Nebraska is mainly attributable to the use of storage water from the Pathfinder Reservoir.
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The Pathfinder Reservoir is part of the "North Platte Project" which followed the adoption by Congress in 1902 of the Reclamation Act. 32 Stat. 388, 43 U.S.C.A. §§ 372, 373, 381, 383, 391, et seq. Pathfinder was completed in 1913. It has a capacity of 1,045,000 acre feet, which is 79 per cent of the average annual run-off of the North Platte River at that point. This project includes an auxiliary channel reservoir called Guernsey, located above Whalen, Wyoming. Its capacity is 50,870 acre feet. The project also includes two small reservoirs in Nebraska — Lake Alice and Lake Minatare — having a capacity of 11,400 and 67,000 acre feet respectively. There are two main supply canals — Interstate and Fort Laramie — which take out from the North Platte at the Whalen diversion dam. The Interstate canal runs on the north side and the Fort Laramie on the south side of the river. Both extend far into Nebraska. Northport—a third canal—is located wholly in Nebraska. These canals and their laterals extend over 1600 miles. The project also includes a drainage system and two hydro-electric power plants. The United States contracted with landowners or irrigation districts for use of the water —selling it, as contemplated by the Reclamation Act, so as to recoup the cost of the project which was about $19,000,000. It also entered into so-called Warren Act contracts pursuant to the Act known by that name (36 Stat. 925, 43 U.S.C.A. § 523 et seq.) which authorized the Secretary of the Interior to contract for the storage and delivery of any surplus water conserved by any reclamation project in excess of the requirements of the project.
We have mentioned the Interstate, Ft. Laramie, and Northport canals which are part of the North Platte Project, the first two of which take out at the Whalen diversion dam. About a mile east of the Wyoming-Nebraska line is the Tri-State Dam. Just above that dam in Nebraska are the headgates of three large Nebraska canals — Tri-State, Gering, and Northport. Water for the Northport is diverted through the Tri-State headgate, Northport physically being an extension of the Tri-State canal. Another Nebraska canal is the Ramshorn which also receives its supply through Tri-State. Just above the state line is the headgate of the Mitchell canal serving Nebraska land. While these five canals are commonly referred to as the Nebraska State Line Canals, this opinion generally uses the term...
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...N. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist. v. Unites States, 88 Fed. Cl. 636, 644 (Fed. Cl. 2009); Goshen Irrigation Dist. v. Pathfinder Irrigation Dist., 62 F. Supp. 2d 1218, 1221-22 (D. Wyo. 1999); Bean v. United States, 163 F. Supp. 838, 841-42 (Ct. Cl. 1958). With this in mind, the Court must det......