The Adjudication that Ate Arizona Water Law
Joseph M. Feller
Arizona State University (ASU) - Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law
Arizona Law Review, Vol. 49, p. 405, 2007
This article traces the expansive and expensive contours of the Gila River Adjudication (the Adjudication) begun in 1974 to remedy depletions of the Verde River, a tributary of the Salt River, to which Salt River Project (SRP) and its members possess rights as senior appropriators on the Salt River. The Adjudication is the largest, longest, and one of the most expensive judicial proceedings in the history of Arizona, and is one of the most complex judicial proceedings in the United States. While originally intended to determine all water rights in one proceeding, the Adjudication’s length caused SRP, within the Adjudication, to resort to piecemeal litigation against individual infringers. This article considers the role of the Gila River and its tributaries in Arizona's water supply, the key developments in Arizona water law behind the Gila River Adjudication, the history of the Adjudication and the consequent litigation and legislation, the prospects for the Adjudication’s completion, the Adjudication’s negative effect on water rights enforcement, and the recent motions for interim relief filed by SRP in 2004. It concludes by evaluating whether a comprehensive general stream adjudication is an efficient means of determining water rights and suggests an alternative mechanism, based on Colorado's system of 'rolling' water adjudications, for determining and enforcing water rights in Arizona and the proposed relationship to Indian reserved water rights claims.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 36
Keywords: Gila River Adjudication, Salt River Project, Water Rights
Date posted: September 4, 2009
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