United States v. Nevada and California
| Citation | 93 S.Ct. 2763,37 L.Ed.2d 132,412 U.S. 534 |
| Decision Date | 11 June 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 59,O,59 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, plaintiff, v. States of NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA. rig |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Solicitor Gen. Erwin N. Griswold for plaintiff.
E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr., Washington, D. C., for defendant State of Nev.
Roderick Walston, for defendant State of Cal.
On motion for leave to file bill of complaint.
The United States asks leave to file a bill of complaint pursuant to this Court's original jurisdiction against the States of California and Nevada seeking a declaration of the respective rights of the States and of the United States in the Truckee River, a navigable interstate stream. The Truckee rises in the High Sierra, flows into Lake Tahoe, through which the California-Nevada boundary runs, exits on the California side of the Lake, and flows 20 miles before crossing into Nevada. It then continues another 65 miles, through Reno and beyond, to its termination in Pyramid Lake, a desert lake 20 miles long and five miles wide, with no outlet and a water level determined by the balance or imbalance between inflow and evaporation.
The bill of complaint sought to be filed states that in 1859 the United States created a reservation for the Paiute Indian Tribe that included Pyramid Lake and an extensive area surrounding it. Allegedly, the United States intended at the time to reserve sufficient water from the Truckee River to maintain Pyramid Lake and the lower reaches of the river as a viable fishery on which the Indians could depend for their subsistence and livelihood. The level of the Lake, however, is said to have declined some 70 feet since 1906, due chiefly to upstream uses and diversions which make it imperative that the prior right of the United States to sufficient water to maintain Pyramid Lake be judicially declared as against each of the defendant States.
It appears from the bill of complaint that the United States has several other interests in the waters of the Truckee River, chief among which is the right to divert at its Derby Dam, some distance upstream from Pyramid Lake, large amounts of water from the Truckee River for transportation and use in connection with the Newlands Reclamation Project, initiated and completed by the United States pursuant to the Reclamation Act of 1902, 32 Stat. 388.* Judicial approval for this diversion was
x sought by the United States in a suit brought by it in 1913 in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co., Equity No. A-3 (1944). The decree entered in this action in 1944 authorized the United States to divert Truckee River water at Derby Dam for delivery to the Newlands Project; it also declared the prior right of the United States to sufficient Truckee River water to irrigate some 3,130 acres of bottom land and 2,745 acres of bench land on the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation. App. D to Motion for Leave to File Complaint.
The foremost purpose of the United States in seeking to institute the present litigation is to perfect a prior water right against all upstream uses that will maintain Pyramid Lake at its current level and so prevent further deterioration of the lake and the river as a habitat for the native fish that have historically thrived in the Lake and that have provided sustenance for the Tribe.
The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied. The States of California and Nevada have entered into a compact with respect to their respective shares in the Truckee River water, and that compact is the subject of pending bills in Congress. H.R. 15, S. 24, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. There is now no controversy between the two States with respect to the Truckee River. The complaint, therefore, as the United States concedes, is not one alleging a case or controversy between two States within the exclusive jurisdiction of this Court, under 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a), but a dispute between the United States and two States over which this Court has original but not exclusive jurisdiction under § 1251(b)(2).
We seek to exercise our original jurisdiction sparingly and are particularly reluctant to take jurisdiction of a suit where the plaintiff has another adequate forum in which to settle his claim. Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U.S. 91, 92 S.Ct. 1385, 31 L.Ed.2d 712 (1972); Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp., 401 U.S. 493, 91 S.Ct. 1005, 28 L.Ed.2d 256 (1971); Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U.S. 1, 60 S.Ct. 39, 84 L.Ed. 3 (1939). Here, Nevada disputes the right of the United States to sufficient water to maintain Pyramid Lake at any particular level. It also asserts that the United States is bound by the 1944 Orr Ditch decree to respect the private water rights of hundreds of landowners who are served by the Newlands Project and whose rights are dependent upon the right of the United States to divert Truckee River water, the decree authorizing that diversion, and a contract with the United States to deliver the water to the project. This dispute over the Orr Ditch...
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