The U.S. Supreme Court today (November 27, 2017) upheld a key decision affecting Native American tribal rights. Last March, we posted regarding the remarkable Ninth Circuit decision in Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Coachella Valley Water District (849 F.3d 1262 (2017)), in which the Ninth Circuit affirmed that the federal “reserved rights” doctrine for water established in the seminal case of Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908), applies to groundwater (see here). As expected, the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by the defendant water agencies; the High Court has declined to hear the case, however, and that denial of certiorari upholds the Appellate Court’s determination that the Winters doctrine applies to groundwater on Tribal Reservations.
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