Arizona v. California Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

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Arizona v. California | 373 U.S. 546 (1963)

Water is the source of all life, but unfortunately, it is also a limited resource. Particularly in the southwestern United States, water can be scarce, and multiple states must draw from the same limited source. So, what happens when one state doesn’t think it’s getting its fair share of water and challenges Indian reservations’ rights to water? In Arizona versus California, we’ll see whether Indian reservations have a right to water from the Colorado River.

The Colorado River basin provides water to multiple states, including in the lower region, California, Arizona, and Nevada, and in the upper region, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. Within the states that receive water from the Colorado River, there are also Indian reservations that depend on the river for irrigation and other needs. The Colorado River Compact, an agreement from nineteen twenty two, allocated water from the river equally between all the states in the upper and lower regions. However, the compact didn’t give shares of water to individual states.

In 1952, the state of Arizona sued the state of California in the United States Supreme Court to determine how water from the Colorado River should be allocated to each state and Indian reservations. The United States intervened in the case and asserted claims on behalf of Indian reservations located in the impacted states, including Arizona. The United States claimed that the rights to water for the reservations were reserved when the reservations were created. Arizona challenged this claim and argued that the United States couldn’t reserve water rights for reservations in Arizona once Arizona became a state. Arizona argued that the water should be allocated equally between states and reservations in accordance with the equal apportionment doctrine. The Court appointed a special master to conduct a trial and report his conclusions, which the Court would consider in its opinion.

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