White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Donald P. Hodel

This appeal is part of the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s continuing efforts to litigate in Federal District Court its claims of Department of Interior mismanagement. The Tribe claims allegedly poor performance on the part of the government as trustee for the Tribe’s natural resources on its reservation in Arizona. The district court dismissed without prejudice the aspect of the litigation now before us because of the Tribe’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies within the Department of the Interior.

The Tribe originally filed this action in 1983. In an earlier appeal, we considered the district court’s dismissal of the Tribe’s claim for federal adjudication of water rights involving the Salt River, which has its headwaters within the reservation. White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Hodel, 784 F.2d 921 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 644 , 93 L.Ed.2d 700 (1986). There we held that the water rights claim was properly dismissed because of a pending comprehensive water allocation proceeding in Arizona state court. We admonished the Tribe for persistent and counterproductive resistance to state court jurisdiction. We urged the Tribe to make its objection to the…