United States v. Truckee-Carson Irrigation District

This appeal arises from efforts by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians to apply some of its Truckee River water rights, as established under a 1944 federal court decree, to instream use rather than irrigation. The district court held that the Tribe was entitled to change the use of the water rights, but was not entitled to apply the transportation loss portion of the rights. We affirm.

I. Background

The Truckee River originates in California, flows into Nevada, and terminates in Pyramid Lake. The lake is the principal natural feature of the Pyramid Lake Reservation. Acting under authority granted to it by the Reclamation Act of 1902, 32 Stat. § 388, the federal government initiated the Newlands Reclamation Project to divert water for irrigation from the Truckee and Carson Rivers. Because private landowners and the Indians of the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation held preexisting water rights, the United States brought suit in federal district court in 1913 to quiet title to all water rights in the project area. More than thirty years later, the federal district court in Nevada entered a final decree adjudicating water rights in the Truckee Division of the project. United…