9th Cir.;
14-16942

The court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part a judgment. The court held that a party's failure to present any evidence regarding the potential adverse impact of water transfers from landowners who were parties to the Globe Equity Decree warranted the denial of its transfer applications.

In 1935, the Globe Equity Decree was entered, governing distribution of water among the Gila River Indian Community, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and other local landowners. Parties to the decree were entitled to divert water from the Gila River for the “beneficial use” and “irrigation” of land in accordance with specified priorities. The district court retained jurisdiction to enforce and interpret the decree. In 2001, the United States and others filed a post-judgment complaint seeking to enforce the decree against thousands of individual landowners who were allegedly using wells to pump water in excess of their decreed rights. In 2007, various parties entered into an agreement to dismiss their complaint if the defendants permanently reduced the number of acres they were entitled to irrigate. The agreement also provided that the defendants could sever and transfer water rights from decreed lands to certain “Hot Lands,” which had been irrigated but were not covered by the decree. Of 419 sever and transfer applications that were filed, 59 were filed by Freeport Minerals Corporation, which had begun acquiring decreed lands in 1997 for the express purpose of obtaining the appurtenant water rights. The United States, the Tribe, and the Community filed objections to the sever and transfer applications.