FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
and
PYRAMID LAKE PAIUTE TRIBE OF
INDIANS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
No. 07-17001
v.
ORR WATER DITCH CO., D.C. No.
CV-73-00018-LDG
Defendant,
OPINION
NEVADA STATE ENGINEER,
Respondent-Appellee,
and
GRAND SLAM ENTERPRISES, LLC;
TRI WATER AND SEWER COMPANY,
Real-parties-in-interest-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Lloyd D. George, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
July 15, 2009—San Francisco, California
Filed April 7, 2010
Before: Cynthia Holcomb Hall, William A. Fletcher and
Richard A. Paez, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge William A. Fletcher
5261
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5263
COUNSEL
Don Springmeyer, ANGIUS & TERRY, Las Vegas, Nevada,
Stephanie Zehren-Thomas, HESTER & ZEHREN, Louisville,
Colorado, for the petitioner-appellant.
5264 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
Michael Louis Wolz, OFFICE OF THE NEVADA ATTOR-
NEY GENERAL, Reno, Nevada,Ross E. de Lipkau, PAR-
SONS BEHLE & LATIMER, Reno, Nevada, for the
respondents-appellees.
OPINION
W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:
This case concerns the extent of the federal courts’ subject
matter jurisdiction over the administration of water rights
adjudicated in the Orr Ditch Decree (“the Decree”). The
Decree allocates rights to water in the Truckee River. See
United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co., Equity No. A3 (D. Nev.
1944). The river begins at Lake Tahoe and runs most of its
course in Nevada, ultimately flowing into Pyramid Lake,
northeast of Reno. The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians
(“the Tribe”) alleges that Nevada State Engineer Ruling 5747,
allocating groundwater in the Tracy Segment Hydrographic
Basin (“the Basin”), adversely affects its water rights under
the Decree. The Tribe appealed the decision by the Nevada
State Engineer (“State Engineer” or “Engineer”) to the federal
district court for the District of Nevada. Appellees contended
that, whatever the effect of the Engineer’s allocations of
groundwater on the Tribe’s decreed water rights, the district
court did not have jurisdiction over the appeal because the
Decree adjudicated only rights to surface water in the river.
The district court agreed and dismissed the appeal for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction.
We reverse and remand. If the Tribe’s allegations are true,
the groundwater taken from the Basin pursuant to the Engi-
neer’s groundwater allocations will adversely affect the
Tribe’s decreed water rights. We hold, first, that the Orr Ditch
Decree forbids groundwater allocations that adversely affect
the Tribe’s decreed rights to water flows in the river. We
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5265
hold, second, that the federal district court has jurisdiction
over an appeal from groundwater allocations by the Engineer
that are alleged to have such an adverse effect.1
I. Background
The Truckee River is the principal source of water for Pyra-
mid Lake. The lake is “widely considered the most beautiful
desert lake in North America.” Nevada v. United States, 463
U.S. 110, 114 (1983) (quoting S. Wheeler, The Desert Lake
90 (1967)). “When first viewed by Captain John Fremont in
early 1844, Pyramid Lake was some 50 miles long and 12
miles wide. Since that time the surface area of the Lake has
been diminished by about 20,000 acres.” Id. at 115. The lake
is situated entirely within the boundaries of the Pyramid Lake
Paiute Tribe Reservation.
The history of the Orr Ditch Decree goes back over one
hundred years. The Supreme Court recounted some of that
history in Nevada v. United States. Id. at 113-18. We
recounted it briefly in United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co.
(Orr Ditch I), 914 F.2d 1302, 1304 (9th Cir. 1990):
The Reclamation Act of 1902 . . . authorized the
federal government to pursue efforts to reclaim arid
lands in certain western states. In one of these
efforts, the Newlands Reclamation Project, the gov-
ernment planned to irrigate an area of western
Nevada with water from the Truckee and Carson
Rivers, which flow through and around Lake Tahoe
and Reno, Nevada. Because private landowners and
the Indians of the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation
had already-established water rights, the United
States filed an action in 1913 to quiet title to all
1
In a separate memorandum disposition filed today, we address the
cross-appeal of Tahoe Reno Commercial Center, LLC. United States v.
Orr Water Ditch Co., No. 07-17021.
5266 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
water rights in the Project area. The resulting legal
activity became known as the Orr Ditch litigation.
An appointed Special Master held hearings, then
issued a report and recommended a proposed decree
in 1924. Two years later, the district court issued a
temporary restraining order enforcing the proposed
decree. In 1934, after a lapse of interest in the litiga-
tion, a drought prompted more activity. In 1935, the
major parties to the litigation signed an agreement
similar to the proposed decree that had been in effect
on a “temporary” basis. Finally, in 1944, the district
court entered its final decree that approved and
incorporated the settlement.
Under the Decree, the Tribe owns Claims No. 1 and 2, the
two most senior water rights on the Truckee River. A substan-
tial portion of the water held under these rights was recently
transferred “temporarily” from irrigation to in-stream use in
order to allow the water to flow into the Pyramid Lake.
United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co. (Orr Ditch III), 391
F.3d 1077, 1079 (9th Cir. 2004).
In November 1998, the Nevada State Engineer granted the
Tribe the right to all of the water remaining in the river after
the Orr Ditch Decree rights and other rights were satisfied.
We are informed by the parties that, at the time of briefing to
this court, an appeal of this ruling was pending in Nevada
state court. The Tribe’s rights under the Engineer’s 1998 rul-
ing are based on Nevada law rather than the Orr Ditch Decree.
We have consistently interpreted the Orr Ditch Decree, as
well as the related Alpine Decree, to provide for “federal dis-
trict court review of decisions of the State Engineer regarding
applications to change the place of diversion or manner or
place of use of water rights derived from the Alpine and Orr
Ditch Decrees.” United States v. Alpine Land & Reservoir Co.
(Alpine II), 174 F.3d 1007, 1011 (9th Cir. 1999). Over the
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5267
past thirty years, numerous decisions of the Engineer pertain-
ing to rights under these two decrees have been appealed to
the federal district court and then to us. See, e.g., United
States v. Alpine Land & Reservoir Co. (Alpine I), 878 F.2d
1217 (9th Cir. 1989); Alpine II, 174 F.3d 1007; United States
v. Orr Water Ditch Co. (Orr Ditch II), 256 F.3d 935 (9th Cir.
2001); United States v. Alpine Land & Reservoir Co. (Alpine
III), 341 F.3d 1172 (9th Cir. 2003); Orr Ditch III, 391 F.3d
1077; United States v. Truckee-Carson Irrigation Dist., 429
F.3d 902 (9th Cir. 2005); United States v. Alpine Land & Res-
ervoir Co. (Alpine IV), 510 F.3d 1035 (9th Cir. 2007).
The appeal now before us arises out of an allocation by the
State Engineer of groundwater rights in the Tracy Segment
Hydrological Basin. The Basin lies between the towns of
Sparks in the west, Fernley in the east, and Virginia City in
the south. The northern border runs roughly parallel to Inter-
state 80 between three and five miles north of the highway.
At its northeastern tip, the Basin abuts the Pyramid Lake Pai-
ute Tribe Reservation. A thirty-mile stretch of the Truckee
River runs through the Basin on its way to Pyramid Lake.
According to a study published by the United States Geologi-
cal Survey in 2006 and relied upon by the State Engineer, the
Truckee River is a gaining stretch as it runs through the Basin,
receiving an average net gain of about 11,000 acre-feet per
year from the Basin’s groundwater unless there has been an
over-allocation of that water.
Between 1998 and 2003, several parties applied for new
groundwater allocations in the Basin. The Tribe and Churchill
County opposed the majority of the applications, contending
that the groundwater of the Basin was already fully appropri-
ated and that the requested allocations would reduce the base
flow of the Truckee River. They contended that this reduction
would interfere, inter alia, with decreed water rights under the
Orr Ditch Decree.
In June 2007, in Ruling 5747, the State Engineer granted
most of the groundwater applications. The Engineer noted
5268 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
that the United States Geological Survey had previously esti-
mated that the “perennial yield” of the Basin is approximately
6,000 acre-feet per year resulting from groundwater recharge
from precipitation. Even before the current applications were
considered, groundwater allocations of 7,976 acre-feet per
year had been granted. If the estimate of 6,000 acre-feet per
year perennial yield is accurate, groundwater in the Basin was
thus already over-allocated. After considering a wide range of
estimates, the Engineer revised upward the estimated peren-
nial yield of the Basin to approximately 11,500 acre-feet per
year. Based on the revised estimate, the Engineer granted
some of the new applications, concluding that they would not
result in over-allocation of the groundwater in the Basin.
The Engineer concluded further that even if the new alloca-
tions were to result in over-allocation of the groundwater and
a diminution of the base flow of the Truckee River, this would
not conflict with any of the decreed rights to water in the
river. Quoting an earlier Engineer ruling, the Engineer con-
cluded “that the ground-water discharge to the Truckee River
should not be counted as part of the [Tribe’s] surface-water
rights in the Truckee River . . . established under Claims No.
1 and 2 of the Orr Ditch Decree.” The Engineer wrote that
“there is nothing in the Orr Ditch Decree that indicates possi-
ble ground-water discharge to the Truckee River was even
contemplated by the decree court as part of the water of the
river.” The Engineer also concluded that the ground-water
discharge to the river should not be counted as part of the
Tribe’s rights established under the 1998 ruling in which the
Tribe was granted, as a matter of state law, rights to the
remaining flow of the river after all of the decreed water
rights were satisfied.
The Tribe appealed the Engineer’s ruling to the federal dis-
trict court. The Tribe argued broadly that the district court had
jurisdiction to review the Engineer’s ruling, both as it affected
its rights under the Decree and as it affected its rights under
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5269
the Engineer’s 1998 ruling. The Engineer moved to dismiss
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
The district court granted the motion to dismiss, writing:
At its essence, the issue before this court is
whether appellate jurisdiction over the rulings of the
State Engineer is determined by reference to the
water right[s] of the applicant, or by reference to any
water rights that might be affected by the State Engi-
neer’s ruling, including that of the applicant . . . As
recognized by the Tribe, this court has exclusive
jurisdiction over the Truckee River waters. See
United States v. Alpine Land & Reservoir Co., 174
F.3d 1107, 1011 (9th Cir. 1999). Section 540.450(1)
[of Nev. Rev. Stat.] itself recognizes that, on stream
systems on which a decree has already been entered,
exclusive jurisdiction rests in the court issuing that
decree.
If exclusive jurisdiction is determined by refer-
ence to any water rights affected by a State Engi-
neer’s ruling, such “exclusive” jurisdiction could
conceivably rest in two or three or more courts. An
applicant seeking to appropriate water rights from a
decreed stream system could be protested by an
owner of water rights in a different decreed stream
system, placing “exclusive jurisdiction” of the
appeal in two different courts. Or, an applicant seek-
ing water from a non-decreed system could be pro-
tested by two persons, each having water rights on
different decreed water systems. Or, an applicant
could be protested by a single entity having water
rights on different decreed water systems. Again, in
either latter case, two different courts would have
“exclusive” jurisdiction to hear the appeal to the det-
riment of the other. The potential for such absurd
results is avoided entirely if appellate jurisdiction is
5270 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
determined by reference to the applicant’s water
rights.
The Tribe timely appealed.
II. Standard of Review
We review de novo a dismissal for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. Marceau v. Blackfeet Hous. Auth., 455 F.3d 974,
978 (9th Cir. 2006). We review a district court’s factual find-
ings for clear error. Coyle v. P.T. Garuda Indonesia, 363 F.3d
979, 984 n.7 (9th Cir. 2004). “The party asserting federal
jurisdiction has the burden of establishing it.” Miguel v.
Country Funding Corp., 309 F.3d 1161, 1164 (9th Cir. 2002).
III. Discussion
There are essentially two questions before us. First, does
the Orr Ditch Decree forbid an allocation of groundwater by
the State Engineer that has an adverse effect on the Tribe’s
decreed rights to water in the Truckee River? Second, if the
Decree forbids such an allocation of groundwater, does the
district court have subject matter jurisdiction over an appeal
from a ruling of the Engineer that allegedly conflicts with the
Decree? We answer “yes” to both questions.
A. Extent of the Tribe’s Decreed Rights
The State Engineer concluded that the Tribe’s water rights
under the Orr Ditch Decree could be diminished by ground-
water allocations without violating the Decree. In the view of
the Engineer, the Decree granted the Tribe rights only to the
surface water flowing in the Truckee River. In his view, the
Decree provided no protection against allocations of ground-
water that would diminish the amount of surface water and
thereby adversely affect the Tribe’s decreed rights. For the
reasons that follow, we disagree.
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5271
The Decree provides:
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND
DECREED AS FOLLOWS:
That the parties, persons, corporations, interve-
nors, grantees, successors in interest and assigns and
substituted parties above and hereinafter named and
their successors in interest and assigns are, and each
of them is, as against every other one, hereby
adjudged to be the owners of the water rights herein-
after specified and set forth and entitled and allowed
to divert and use, from the Truckee River and its
tributaries and from the streams, springs, drain and
waste waters hereinafter mentioned[.]
Decree at 10 (emphasis added). The Tribe is one of the parties
named in the Decree.
The Decree granted the Tribe the two most senior rights to
water from the Truckee River, Claims No. 1 and 2. Both
claims provide water to the Tribe for use on the reservation.
The Decree describes in Claim No. 1 the history leading to the
grant of the rights conferred in the two claims:
By order of the Commissioner of the General
Land Office made on December 8, 1859, the lands
comprising the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation
were withdrawn from the public domain for use and
benefit of the Indians and this withdrawal was con-
firmed by order of the President on March 23, 1874.
Thereby and by implication and by relation as of the
date of December 8, 1859, a reasonable amount of
the water of the Truckee River, which belonged to
the United States under the cession of territory by
Mexico in 1848 and which was the only water avail-
able for the irrigation of these lands, became
5272 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
reserved for the needs of the Indians on the reserva-
tion.
Id. (emphasis added).
[1] We recognize that there is no language in the Decree
explicitly protecting the Tribe’s decreed rights in Claims No.
1 and 2 from diminution of the flow of the river resulting
from allocation of groundwater to other users. But the Engi-
neer overstated the matter when he wrote that “there is noth-
ing in the Orr Ditch Decree that indicates possible ground-
water discharge to the Truckee River was even contemplated
by the decree court as part of the water of the river.” The
Decree indicates that the water rights granted to the Tribe in
Claims No. 1 and 2 were intended to fulfill the purpose of the
United States in withdrawing land from the public domain for
the Tribe’s reservation and reserving “a reasonable amount of
water” for use on the reservation. It is inconsistent with that
purpose to allocate water to other users if that allocation
diminishes the Tribe’s reserved water supply.
[2] Surface water contributes to groundwater, and ground-
water contributes to surface water. The reciprocal hydraulic
connection between groundwater and surface water has been
known to both the legal and professional communities for
many years. The Supreme Court wrote in Kansas v. Colorado,
206 U.S. 46, 114-15 (1907), “If the bed of a stream is not
solid rock, but earth, through which water will percolate, . . .
undoubtedly water will be found many feet below the surface,
and the lighter the soil the more easily will it find its way
downward and the more water will be discoverable by wells
. . . .” The Court wrote in Snake Creek Mining & Tunnel Co.
v. Midway Irrigation Co., 260 U.S. 596, 598 (1923), “The
waters intercepted and collected . . . are percolating waters,
which . . . found their way naturally . . . through the rocks,
gravel, and soil of the mountain into open springs near the
stream, and thence by surface channels into the stream.” In a
law review article published two years before the entry of the
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5273
Orr Ditch Decree, the authors emphasized the importance of
the hydraulic connection: “The significance of the fact that
ground water never occurs as a stationary water body should
be stressed. Ordinarily, the subsurface reservoir is continu-
ously receiving additions by influent seepage from rainfall
and surface water bodies and is always discharging water by
natural processes. In the subsurface reservoir ground water is
percolating toward the discharge area; no static ground-water
bodies are known to exist.” C.F. Tolman & Amy C. Stipp,
Analysis of Legal Concepts of Subflow and Percolating
Waters, 21 Or. L. Rev. 113, 129 (1942).
[3] The district court entering the Orr Ditch Decree would
have known about the relationship between surface water and
groundwater. The Decree expressly states that Claims No. 1
and 2 fulfill the purpose of the United States in establishing
the Tribe’s reservation. In the words of the Decree, that pur-
pose was to withdraw from the public lands “the lands com-
prising the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation,” and to
“reserve” a “reasonable amount of water of the Truckee
River” to meet the “needs of the Indians on the reservation.”
This statement of intent to reserve a reasonable amount of
water makes clear that the proper construction of the Decree
is that the water rights granted in Claims No. 1 and 2 cannot
be defeated by allocation of water to others—whether by allo-
cation of surface water or groundwater.
Even without such an explicit statement, we would come to
the same conclusion based on Winters v. United States, 207
U.S. 564 (1908), which dealt with water rights on the Fort
Belknap Indian Reservation. The Court in Winters held that
sufficient water was reserved to serve the needs of the Indi-
ans, despite the absence of clear words so specifying in the
agreement establishing the reservation. The Court invoked a
rule of interpretation that would further the purpose of the
agreement:
By a rule of interpretation of agreements and treaties
with the Indians, ambiguities occurring will be
5274 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
resolved from the standpoint of the Indians. And the
rule should certainly be applied to determine
between two inferences, one of which would support
the purpose of the agreement and the other impair or
defeat it. On account of their relations to the govern-
ment, it cannot be supported that the Indians were
alert to exclude by formal words every inference
which might militate against or defeat the declared
purpose of themselves and the government[.]
Id. at 576-77.
[4] We therefore hold that the Decree protects the Tribe
from allocations of groundwater that would adversely affect
its decreed water rights under Claims No. 1 or 2.
B. Jurisdiction of the District Court
[5] The district court’s subject matter jurisdiction over
appeals from decisions of the State Engineer is an odd amal-
gam. The court’s jurisdiction is based on the ability of a court
of equity to enforce and administer its decrees. As we wrote
in Alpine I:
[T]he federal district court acts as an appellate
court for decisions of the state Engineer. Needless to
say, such jurisdiction is highly extraordinary.
We specifically approved of this jurisdictional
arrangement in United States v. Alpine Land & Res-
ervation Co., 697 F.2d 851, 858 (9th Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 464 U.S. 863 (1983). The district court’s
jurisdiction is established as an adjunct to its juris-
diction over the quiet title action originally filed by
the United States. . . . The district court’s equity
jurisdiction was properly invoked to review the
Engineer’s decision in order to “provide full vindica-
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5275
tion of the admitted federal interests in the operation
of federal reclamation projects.” Id. at 858.
878 F.2d at 1219 n.2 (some citations omitted).
[6] Nevada law also recognizes this unique jurisdictional
arrangement. Specifically, it provides:
Any person feeling himself aggrieved by any
order or decision of the State Engineer . . . when the
order or decision relates to the administration of
determined rights . . . may have the same reviewed
by a proceeding for that purpose, insofar as may be
in the nature of an appeal, which must be initiated in
the proper court of the county in which the matters
affected or a portion thereof are situated, but on
stream systems where a decree of court has been
entered, the action must be initiated in the court that
entered the decree.
Nev. Rev. Stat. § 533.450(1) (emphasis added); see also Orr
Ditch I, 914 F.2d at 1309 n.8 (“Nevada law thus supports the
system adopted by the federal courts for appeals of Engineer
decisions on federal-court-decreed water rights.”); Alpine II,
174 F.3d at 1011 (“[W]e have interpreted Nevada law, which
provides for jurisdiction of appeals from decisions of the State
Engineer ‘in the court that entered the decree,’ as providing
for federal court review under the Orr Ditch Decree.”).
[7] We hold today that the Decree protects the Tribe’s
water rights under Claims No. 1 and 2 from diminution result-
ing from allocation of groundwater rights. This holding neces-
sarily means that any allocation of groundwater rights by the
State Engineer that allegedly diminishes the Tribe’s decreed
water rights comes within the clause of Nev. Rev. Stat.
§ 533.450(1) that provides for appellate review “in the court
that entered the decree.” The decree in this case was entered
by the federal district court for the District of Nevada. We
5276 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
therefore hold that the district court has subject matter juris-
diction over the Tribe’s appeal from Ruling 5747 insofar as
that ruling may adversely affect the Tribe’s decreed rights
under Claims No. 1 and 2.
[8] We note, however, that the district court does not have
jurisdiction over the Tribe’s appeal from that ruling insofar as
it may adversely affect the Tribe’s rights under the Engineer’s
1998 ruling granting the Tribe the right to water remaining in
the Truckee River after decreed and other rights have been
satisfied. The district court does not have jurisdiction because
the Engineer’s 1998 ruling was based on state law. The part
of the Engineer’s current ruling allegedly affecting the Tribe’s
rights under his 1998 ruling has no effect on the Tribe’s rights
under the Decree.
The district court accurately foresaw that practical difficul-
ties would result from a conclusion that it has jurisdiction
over an appeal from an Engineer’s ruling allocating ground-
water from the Basin. But the appeal will be limited, and the
practical difficulties will be manageable. The district court
was asked to decide only one question on appeal: Will the
Engineer’s allocation of groundwater rights adversely affect
the Tribe’s rights under the Decree? If the court concludes
that the allocation will have an adverse effect on the Tribe’s
decreed rights, it will instruct the Engineer to reduce the
amount of allocated groundwater rights by an amount neces-
sary to eliminate that effect. If the court concludes that the
allocation will not adversely affect the Tribe’s decreed rights,
it will simply affirm the Engineer’s ruling. In neither case will
the district court have the authority in the Tribe’s appeal to
tell the Engineer how to allocate groundwater rights among
the various applicants. To the extent that groundwater may be
allocated consistent with protection of the Tribe’s decreed
rights, the amount of the allocations and the distribution
among the applicants are of no concern to the district court in
the Tribe’s appeal.
UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO. 5277
The district court also accurately stated that the exercise of
subject matter jurisdiction by the federal courts would be
inconsistent with the general principle of water law that a sin-
gle court should have exclusive jurisdiction over an interre-
lated system of water rights. See, e.g., State Eng’r v. S. Fork
Band of the Te-Moak Tribe of W. Shoshone Indians of Nev.,
339 F.3d 804, 809 (9th Cir. 2003) (referring to the “ancient
and oft-repeated . . . doctrine of prior exclusive jurisdiction—
that when a court of competent jurisdiction has obtained pos-
session, custody, or control of particular property, that posses-
sion may not be disturbed by any other court” (citation
omitted)). But that principle, while valid and important, is not
an inviolable rule.
Indeed, we have seen already an exception to the general
principle in this very matter. As noted above, the State Engi-
neer in 1998 granted to the Tribe the right to take any water
remaining in the Truckee River after decreed and other rights
have been satisfied. It is undisputed that, as a general proposi-
tion, decisions of the State Engineer allocating the surface
waters of the Truckee River are appealable to the district
court. This is so because the district court administers the Orr
Ditch Decree, which adjudicated rights to water in the river.
But the appeal of the Engineer’s 1998 ruling did not go to the
district court even though the ruling allocated rights to water
in the river. Rather, it appropriately went to the Nevada state
courts, for that ruling was based on state law and did not
affect any rights under the Decree.
Conclusion
[9] For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the Tribe’s
decreed rights to water from the Truckee River under the Orr
Ditch Decree may not be adversely affected by allocations of
groundwater in the Tracy Segment Hydrographic Basin. We
hold, further, that the district court has subject matter jurisdic-
tion to hear the Tribe’s appeal from the State Engineer’s Rul-
ing 5747 insofar as the allocation of groundwater rights is
5278 UNITED STATES v. ORR WATER DITCH CO.
alleged to affect adversely the Tribe’s decreed water rights
under Claims No. 1 and 2.
REVERSED and REMANDED.