Winters v. United States

Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908), was a United States Supreme Court case clarifying water rights of American Indian reservations . This doctrine was meant to clearly define the water rights of indigenous people in cases where the rights were not clear. The case was first argued on October 24, 1907, and a decision was reached January 6, 1908. This case set the standards for the United States government to acknowledge the vitality of indigenous water rights, and how rights to the water relate to the continuing survival and self-sufficiency of indigenous people.

Contents

• 1 Background

  • 1.1 Water rights

    • 1.1.1 Riparian system

    • 1.1.2 Appropriative system

    • 1.1.3 Fort Belknap American Indian Reservation

• 2 Decision

  • 2.1 Majority opinion

  • 2.2 Dissenting opinion

• 3 Implications

  • 3.1 Winters rights

  • 3.2 Effects following ruling

  • 3.3 Related cases

    • 3.3.1 Arizona v. California

    • 3.3.2 Arizona v. San Carlos Apache Tribe of Arizona

    • 3.3.3 Nevada v. United States

    • 3.3.4 United States v. New Mexico

    • 3.3.5 Cappaert v. United States

    • 3.3.6 Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States

    • 3.3.7 United States v. Powers

• 4 References

• 5 External links

Background

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Water rights

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Winters_v._United_States&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Water rights")

Water rights for indigenous peoples go much further than the water itself, as the rights also control where they are allowed to fish.

Water rights are extremely important to Indigenous peoples, especially those tribes living in the West, where water supplies are limited. Reservations, and those who live within them, rely on water sources for the water necessary for them to be self-sufficient. Reservations rely on streams and rivers for agricultural purposes. Not only is the water itself important to the Reservations, but also what the water contains. By having the rights to an area of water, one also gains rights to what is in the water. This gives an implied right to fish the waters. Because life relies on water, it may be fair to say that whoever controls the water ultimately has control over life on the reservation.

Riparian system

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The Riparian water system is the system controlling water use in the eastern states where water is found to be more plentiful. Under this system the owner of the land bordering the source of water is entitled to use of said water. This system is sufficient for the states where water is found in abundance, but in the less water-rich western states the control of water must be handled differently.

Appropriative system

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In the western part of the country, water ownership is controlled by the appropriative system . This system states that the owner of a piece of land does not automatically own the rights to water found on that land. Rights to water belong to the first user who puts the water to beneficial use. The first people to become appropriators of the water source have the right to continue using the water in the same quantity as always as long as they continue putting the water to good use. This holds true no matter how many other people wish to use the water. The latest water appropriator loses all of their water rights before any water rights are taken from the next latest appropriator. The Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana , which had been created by the government in 1888, experienced issues with the appropriative water system when water flow to their reservation was being diverted to settlements of non American Indians .

Fort Belknap American Indian Reservation

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The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation was created in 1888 in Montana. It was created from what had once been a much larger area of land to be set aside for tribes. The 1888 agreement neglected to mention any water rights that were reserved for the reservation in relation to the Milk River . Soon there came a huge demand for water by settlers which was an issue for the Fort Belknap American Indian reservation. As non-Indian settlers began moving closer to the Fort Belknap Reservation, the settlers claimed rights to the water. The settlers did things such as building dams and reservoirs which prevented the reservation from receiving water needed for agricultural purposes. The settlers used the terms of the appropriative water system to support their actions, claiming that they had appropriated the water before the Natives living on the reservation had put the water to beneficial use.

Decision

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The United States Supreme Court case of Winters v. United States held that the decree enjoining the companies from utilizing river waters intended for a Reservation was affirmed. It was also held that when reservations were created by the United States government, they were created with the intention of allowing indigenous settlements to become self-reliant and self-sufficient. As reservations require water to become self-sufficient in areas such as agriculture, it was found that water rights were reserved for tribes as an implication of the treaties that created the reservations.

Majority opinion

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Winters_v._United_States&action=edit&section=7 "Edit section: Majority opinion")

Associate Justice Joseph McKenna delivered the majority opinion.

The Supreme Court came to the decision that the Fort Belknap reservation had reserved water rights through the 1888 agreement which created the Fort Belknap American Reservation. It was found unnecessary for the natives to have to reserve the water rights if they had already reserved the rights to the land for agricultural purposes because the natives would have no use for the farmland if they could not have access to a water source. It was decided that the water rights of the Milk River were implied when the Fort Belknap Reservation was created in order to uphold provisions that had been previously stated. The majority opinion was delivered to the United States Supreme Court by associate justice, Joseph McKenna . McKenna wrote that five of the defendants named in the bill failed to answer. He wrote that the other defendants who did answer filed a joint and several answer. From this answer, the case was heard and a decree was entered against all of the defendants. It was determined by the Supreme Court that the reasoning behind the establishment of reservations was to provide a permanent homeland for the natives. The majority opinion found that the decree held.[\

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