States' Rights in Water Law

Abstract

Sweeping claims to water in the western part of the U.S. by the federal government, supported by favorable court decisions, have been met with stiff protest from municipal leaders, the states, and Congress itself. As demands for water draw drastically upon present sources of supply, conflicts between state and federal control and use of water have intensified. The problem is national in scope, but its impact is greatest in the public land states of the semiarid west, where the water margin is thinnest, and where federal ownership of millions of acres of land establishes a federal premise for claiming proprietorship, paramount rights, or title in fee simple absolute to all unappropriated waters in many states.

Review of Developments in Water Utility Law, 1963–64: ABA Subcommittee Report

“…In March 1964, after many years of postponements on the controversial issue, hearings were held before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the US Senate on S. 1275, to define and limit the assertion of paramount federal water rights for water arising on federal lands.w- 20 Perhaps the most important decision related to that issue is the US Supreme Court's long awaited IOO-page decision in the Arizona v. California 21 case, which divided the waters of the lower basin of the Colorado River between Arizona, Nevada, and California.…”