Law Commons^™

Tribal Water Rights Settlements And Instream Flow Protection, Dylan M. Desrosier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Native American Tribes have been fighting for access, legal recognition, and the control over their water rights for more than a century. Today less than ten percent of the 566 federally recognized Tribes have had their rights legally defined and secured under the law. One particularly complicated and compelling aspect of tribal reserved water rights involves the protection of water instream. Since the McCarran Amendment and state court quantification of Winters reserved rights, Tribes have sought to quantify and protect reserved water rights through negotiated settlement agreements. Although the settlements seek to bring certainty, resolution, and final integration of reserved …