Posted October 10, 2013
 
In Frenchman Cambridge Irr. Dist. V. Heineman, No. 8:12CV445, 2013 WL 5367353 (D.D.C. September 24, 2013), the United States District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the lawsuit, holding that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction.  For a copy of the decision, please contact the National Agricultural Law Center at nataglaw@uark.edu.  For more information on the water law, please visit the Center’s Water Law Reading Room here
 
Background
 
Plaintiffs, two Nebraska irrigation districts, farmers, landowners, and water-user patrons (“the Irrigation Districts”), filed a complaint against defendants, state and federal officials, alleging that the defendants caused or permitted groundwater of the Republican River Basin and the Platte Basin to be pumped from the aquifer to augment streamflow, delivering water to Kansas and, thus, disrupting the flow to the Irrigation Districts which hold superior water rights.  Id. at *2.  The plaintiffs sought a determination of the rights to waters of the Republican River Basin and the Platte Basin within Nebraska and an order compelling defendants to respect those water rights.  Id. at *1.  Both the federal and state defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6).  Id.  
 
Analysis and Holding
 
The court dismissed the lawsuit due to a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  Id. at *12.  The court noted that a “careful reading of the plaintiffs’ complaint shows that the dispute between the parties involves the issue of the appropriation or apportionment of water resources within the state of Nebraska.”  Id. at *10.  
 
The court stated that the plaintiffs failed to show a waiver of the United States’ sovereign immunity and that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that “this matter is a comprehensive adjudication of all water rights in the Republican River basin in Nebraska,” thus 43 U.S.C. § 666a “does not provide a waiver of immunity.”  Id.  The court also found that the plaintiffs “failed to state a cognizable claim against the Federal Defendants” Id. at *11.  43 U.S.C. § 666a (generally referred to as the McCarran Amendment), “only provides a waiver of the United States’ immunity for comprehensive adjudications in which all water rights claimants in the source have been joined.”  Id. at *7.
 
The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining defendants because the case “involves novel and complex state law issues.”  Id.  The court stated that judicial economy would be “disserved by the exercise of this court’s supplemental jurisdiction, since a parallel and concurrent state court proceeding on an almost identical cause of action is proceeding.”  Id.
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