The Tenth Circuit held, 2-1, that a sovereign must affirmatively act to extinguish aboriginal water rights in a lawsuit concerning water rights of the Pueblos of Jemez, Santa Ana, and Zia in the Jemez River Basin in New Mexico. The district court had concluded that the Pueblos' water rights were ext...

The Nevada Supreme Court held that the public trust doctrine did not permit reallocation of water rights already adjudicated and settled under the doctrine of prior appropriation in a lawsuit concerning established water rights for a deteriorating lake in western Nevada. The court found that while t...

The Washington Supreme Court upheld the Department of Ecology's rule that set a summertime minimum instream-flow rate for the Spokane River at 850 cubic feet per second (cfs). Environmental groups challenged the validity of the flow rate, arguing that setting minimum flows at 850 cfs exceeded the De...

A district court denied summary judgment for New York in a challenge to EPA's designation of the eastern Long Island Sound as an open-water dredge disposal site. New York argued EPA's determination that a new site was needed to service the eastern Sound was arbitrary and capricious, that the Agency ...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit challenging two protocol agreements entered into by Native American tribes and the Bureau of Indian Affairs that established procedures for enforcement of the tribes' water rights in the Upper Klamath Basin. A group of ranchers and landowners argued that the agre...

A state appellate court held invalid the Department of Ecology's administrative rule establishing summer minimum instream flows for the lower reach of the Spokane River. Environmental groups challenged the validity of the rule, arguing that it exceeded the Department's authority under the Water Reso...

A state court reversed the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation's approval of a water use permit for a proposed silver-copper mine in Montana's Cabinet Mountains. An environmental group argued that the Department ignored data in the mining company's permit application indicating ...

A state appellate court reversed a judgment against a coastal use permit issued by Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources for construction of an oil pipeline. The Department argued that the lower court erred in not deferring to the Department's finding that its coastal use permit (CUP) guidelin...

The U.S. Supreme Court, in an ongoing dispute between Florida and Georgia over the apportionment of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin's waters, remanded a Special Master's recommendation that Florida's request for a cap on Georgia's consumption of water from the Flint River be denied....

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the United States may pursue claims against New Mexico for violating the Rio Grande Compact, which Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas entered into in the 1930s to resolve disputes over water rights. Texas filed suit alleging that New Mexico was allowing its residents to...