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<TD><SPAN class=body><FONT size=1><FONT face=Arial><SPAN class=body><SPAN
class=timestamp>Jun 23, 12:21 PM EDT</SPAN></SPAN><BR></FONT></FONT>
<P class=body><SPAN class=headline><FONT face=Arial size=5><STRONG>Supreme
Court rules against California farmers in water use case
</STRONG></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG><SPAN class=byline>By ERICA WERNER
</SPAN><BR></STRONG><SPAN class=bylinetitle><FONT size=1>Associated Press
Writer</FONT></SPAN></FONT></P><!-- BEGIN POSITION 1 --><!-- END POSITION 1 -->
<P>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Individual farmers may not sue the federal
government to enforce water contracts entered into by their irrigation
districts, a unanimous Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that limits
landowners' ability to seek compensation for reduced flows.</P>
<P>Two dozen farmers from California's Central Valley wanted the federal
government to pay them about $32 million as compensation for water they
were supposed to get under a federal contract. The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation diverted the water to comply with Endangered Species Act
requirements to protect two threatened fish.</P>
<P>But the federal government argued its contract with the Westlands Water
District only allowed lawsuits by the district itself - not by individual
landowners who are its members.</P>
<P>The state of California and the water district agreed, contending that
letting farmers sue the government directly could result in a rash of
cases and undermine water districts' ability to do business with the
Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages water in the
West.</P><!-- BEGIN POSITION 2 -->
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<P>Justices concluded that the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act "does not
permit a plaintiff to sue the United States alone," Justice Clarence
Thomas wrote for the court.</P>
<P>At issue was a 1963 water service contract between the Bureau of
Reclamation and Westlands, the nation's largest water district, which
encompasses 600,000 acres of cotton, tomatoes, onions and other farmland
in western Fresno and Kings counties.</P>
<P>In 1993 the Bureau of Reclamation cut Westlands' water allocation by
half because of federal requirements to protect the threatened winter-run
chinook salmon and delta smelt. Westlands and some farmers in the water
district sued.</P>
<P>Westlands dropped its suit two years later as part of negotiations to
establish the California Federal Bay-Delta water project. But about two
dozen individual property owners and farming partnerships, led by an aging
farmer named Francis Orff, pressed the litigation.</P><!-- BEGIN POSITION 3 --><!-- END POSITION 3 -->
<P>The farmers contended they needed a way to get compensation for their
losses. If the Supreme Court had agreed, hundreds of individual farmers
could have tried to take on the Bureau of Reclamation, leading to chaotic
litigation, according to government attorneys.</P>
<P>---</P>
<P>The case is Orff et al. v. United States of America, 03-1566.</P>
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