Water Rights
Our firm has a very active Indian water rights practice. We currently represent an Arizona tribe in asserting a claim to water rights in the Colorado River. On behalf of that tribe, the firm has recently concluded a partial settlement of the tribe’s water rights, and secured congressional legislation to ratify that settlement. We represented another tribal client in a general stream adjudication involving Winters doctrine rights. The result was an award of over 500,000 acre feet annually for the tribes involved, the major portion of the water in the system. We also represented a tribe in a water rights settlement that awarded one million acre feet of Missouri River water to that tribe and protected the tribe's authority to administer all tribal water rights on its reservation. Later, through legislative work, we also helped secure funding for a major pipeline to deliver Missouri River water to the major towns of the Reservation and surrounding communities.
In the course of our water rights work, we have developed a group of lawyers thoroughly familiar with Indian water law, a group of tested experts available to work with us on water cases, and the experience in litigation, negotiation and legislative work to achieve beneficial results through negotiation or litigation.