Determination of the Rights of the States of the Lower Colorado River Basin to Waters of the Main Stream of the Colorado River, Opinion

Document: 88th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Document No. 20, Determination of the Rights of the States of the Lower Colorado River Basin to Waters of the Main Stream of the Colorado River, Opinion of the United States Supreme Court in the Case of State of Arizona, Plaintiff, v. State of California et al, Rendered June 3, 1963, Presented by Mr. Hayden, June 4, 1963, page 5048 ARIZONA v. CALIFORNIA. problem before us and cannot be accepted as limiting the broad powers of the United States to regulate navigable waters under the Commerce Clause and to regulate government lands under Art. IV, § 3, of the Constitution. We have no doubt about the power of the United States under these clauses to reserve water rights for its reservations and its property. Arizona also argues that, in any event, water rights cannot be reserved by Executive Order. Some of the reservations of Indian lands here involved were made almost 100 years ago, and all of them were made over 45 years ago. In our view, these reservations, like those created directly by Congress, were not limited to land, but included waters as well. Congress and the Executive have ever since recognized these as Indian Reservations. Numerous appropriations, including appropriations for irrigation projects, have been made by Congress. They have been uniformly and universally treated as reservations by map makers, surveyors, and the public. We can give but short shirft at this late date to the argument that the reservations either of land or water are invalid because they were originally set apart by the Executive.102Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 1,660,830 byte