State Water Law In The Development Of The West

Hutchins, Wells A., Harold H. Ellis and J. Peter DeBraal. Water Rights Laws in the Nineteen Western States. [Washington, D.C.]: United States Department of Agriculture. [1971]. Three volumes. Reprint available July 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-414-2. Cloth. $350. * Rights to the use of water from surface and underground sources are often crucial in the seventeen contiguous Western states, Alaska and Hawaii. This work offers a comparative analysis of the development and status of the constitutional provisions, statutes, reported court decisions and administrative regulations, practices and policies regarding water rights laws in these states. The analysis considers the nature of these water rights and their acquisition, control, transfer, protection and loss. Federal, interstate and international matters are also discussed.

Exploring the little-known history behind the legal doctrine of prior appropriation--"first in time is first in right"--used to apportion water resources in the western United States, this book focuses on the important case of Wyoming v. Colorado (1922). U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter, a former Chief Justice of Wyoming, ruled in that state's favor, finding that prior appropriation applied across state lines--a controversial opinion influenced by cronyism. The dicta in the case, that the U.S. Government has no interest in state water allocation law, drove the balkanization of interstate water systems and resulted in the Colorado River Interstate Compact between Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. The exhaustive research that has gone into this book has uncovered the secret that Associate Justice Van Devanter had waited eleven years to publish his opinion in this important, but politically self-serving, case, at last finding a moment when his senior colleagues were sufficiently absent or incapacitated to either concur or dissent. Without the knowledge of his "brethren," save his "loyal friend" Taft, and without recusal, Van Devanter unilaterally delivered his sole opinion to the Clerk for publication on the last day of the Supreme Court's October 1921 Term.

"Walton first uses his magnifying glass to capture images of struggle in a California valley during a century and a half of transformation, then inverts it to scrutinize the American state, popular politics, and collective action in general. The maneuver is bold, the outcome stimulating."—Charles Tilly, New School for Social Research "A passionate and first rate historical adventure. The plot is as intricate, fascinating, and full of intrigue and detail as a Dickens or a Tolstoy novel."—John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War