[env-trinity] AP- Supreme Court rules against California farmers in water use case

[Tom Stokely]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WST_SCOTUS_WATER_RIGHTS_CAOL-?SITE=CADIU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 Jun 23, 12:21 PM EDT

      Supreme Court rules against California farmers in water use case 

      By ERICA WERNER 
      Associated Press Writer

      WASHINGTON (AP) -- Individual farmers may not sue the federal government to enforce water contracts entered into by their irrigation districts, a unanimous Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that limits landowners' ability to seek compensation for reduced flows.

      Two dozen farmers from California's Central Valley wanted the federal government to pay them about $32 million as compensation for water they were supposed to get under a federal contract. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted the water to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to protect two threatened fish.

      But the federal government argued its contract with the Westlands Water District only allowed lawsuits by the district itself - not by individual landowners who are its members.

      The state of California and the water district agreed, contending that letting farmers sue the government directly could result in a rash of cases and undermine water districts' ability to do business with the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages water in the West.

             
      Justices concluded that the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act "does not permit a plaintiff to sue the United States alone," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.

      At issue was a 1963 water service contract between the Bureau of Reclamation and Westlands, the nation's largest water district, which encompasses 600,000 acres of cotton, tomatoes, onions and other farmland in western Fresno and Kings counties.

      In 1993 the Bureau of Reclamation cut Westlands' water allocation by half because of federal requirements to protect the threatened winter-run chinook salmon and delta smelt. Westlands and some farmers in the water district sued.

      Westlands dropped its suit two years later as part of negotiations to establish the California Federal Bay-Delta water project. But about two dozen individual property owners and farming partnerships, led by an aging farmer named Francis Orff, pressed the litigation.

      The farmers contended they needed a way to get compensation for their losses. If the Supreme Court had agreed, hundreds of individual farmers could have tried to take on the Bureau of Reclamation, leading to chaotic litigation, according to government attorneys.

      ---

      The case is Orff et al. v. United States of America, 03-1566.


     
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