Washington v. East Columbia Basin Irrigation District

BACKGROUND:

The East Low Canal is one of several irrigation channels constructed in the early 1950s by the United States as part of the Columbia Basin Project. The project’s combined; purposes are: generating energy through a power plant at the Grand Coulee Dam; irrigating the agricultural region south of the Dam; and facilitating flood control and navigation in Oregon by regulating the amount of water released from the Dam. Of the $487,030,228 that the Secretary of the Interior estimated the project would cost, in 1945, only $1 million was allocated to flood control and navigation.

*519 Plaintiff, the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District (“the District”), manages the East Low Canal and surrounding works. In 1992, one of the Canal’s retaining walls burst, causing flooding and damage in the region around Moses Lake, Washington. The District sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b) alleging that the government negligently designed and built the Canal. The trial court dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, relying on the government’s flood control immunity. We have jurisdiction over the District’s appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and…