Abstract: The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has inhabited the Coachella Valley region since time immemorial. Through a series of 1870s executive orders, the United States government reserved land for the Tribe to establish a permanent home within the bounds of their ancestral homeland. Underlying this permanent home is the Coachella Valley aquifer, a groundwater source that has been in a continuous state of overdraft for decades. Against the backdrop of climate change, water scarcity, and other concerns, the Tribe sued Coachella Valley’s water management agencies in 2013, alleging the Tribe owned a portion of the water in the aquifer as an implied right under their reservation. The Ninth Circuit found in favor of the Tribe, holding they did, in fact, have a federal reserved right to water in the aquifer. The second phase of the case, ultimately heard by the United States District Court for the Central District of California in 2019, sought to quantify that right. Despite its repeated recognition of the Tribe’s federal reserved right to groundwater, the district court then dismissed the case, finding the Tribe lacked standing to pursue their claim.
This Comment analyzes the district court’s decision in Phase II of the Agua Caliente litigation, highlighting the inconsistencies between the purpose of the Winters doctrine and the court’s preclusion of standing. Without the ability to quantify their legal right to groundwater, the right itself becomes meaningless in practice. The court’s finding that the Tribe lacked standing to pursue its claim denies the rights established under the Winters doctrine and departs from historic understandings of the federal trust relationship and Indian Canons of Construction. Ultimately, this Comment argues courts should adopt a broader construction of these foundational principles of federal Indian law to allow for the most equitable framework for tribes seeking to quantify their reserved water rights through litigation.
