Previous post on this litigation here.
treaty rights
Oregon Court Affirms Klamath Tribes’ Water Rights
On Wednesday, February 24, 2021, in an order from Klamath County Circuit Court Judge Cameron F. Wogan, the Oregon court again affirmed the Klamath Tribes’ water and treaty rights. Wednesday’s order rejected attacks on the Tribes’ water rights determined by the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) during the administrative phase of the Klamath Basin Adjudication (KBA), affirmed the senior priority date of the Klamath Tribes’ water rights in the Klamath Basin, and upheld the need to maintain a healthy and productive habitat to meet the Tribes’ treaty right to fish, hunt, trap, and gather.
Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry responded to the order, “We are pleased that Judge Wogan upheld the rulings from the administrative phase of the KBA. He reaffirmed that the 1864 treaty entered into between the Klamath Tribes and the United States reserved to the Tribes sufficient water to keep our fisheries and other aquatic resources healthy so that we can protect our natural resources and cultural traditions.”
NARF Staff Attorney Sue Noe explained, “Judge Wogan correctly affirmed quantification of the Tribal water rights based on the habitat needs of the fish, wildlife, and plants. Although he ruled that opponents of the Tribal rights will have another chance to try to reduce the amounts by showing the Tribes don’t need all the water awarded by OWRD to meet their livelihood needs, Judge Wogan made clear in no uncertain terms that the amounts cannot be below what is necessary to provide healthy and productive habitat.”
Importantly, like all other courts that have considered the issue, Judge Wogan ruled that the Klamath Tribes’ water rights extend to Upper Klamath Lake. Upper Klamath Lake forms part of the border of the former Reservation and provides critical habitat for the endangered c’waam and koptu (Lost River and shortnose sucker fish), which are sacred fish species traditionally harvested by the Tribes.
Represented by NARF, the Klamath Tribes successfully achieved recognition of their treaty-reserved water rights in federal court litigation in the 1970s and 1980s in United States v. Adair, but the federal courts left quantification of the water rights to the state adjudication in the KBA. After the successful conclusion of the KBA’s 38-year administrative phase, the Tribes were able to begin enforcing their water rights for the first time in 2013. The administrative determinations are presently on review in the Klamath County Circuit Court and Judge Wogan’s ruling is the latest to come out of that process.
Michigan COA Holds Mackinac Tribe Member May Have Treaty Rights
Here is the opinion in People v. Caswell:
An excerpt:
Defendant, Walter Joseph Caswell, is a member of the Mackinac Tribe of Odawa and Ojibwa Indians (the “Mackinac Tribe”). In October 2018, a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) conservation officer cited defendant for spear fishing in a closed stream in violation of MCL 324.48715 and MCL 324.48711.1 Defendant moved to dismiss the charges on the ground that he was a member of an Indian tribe or band granted hunting and fishing rights by 1836 and 1855 treaties with the United States federal government. The Mackinac County district court granted defendant’s motion upon concluding that the Mackinac Tribe was entitled to rights under the relevant treaties. On appeal from the prosecutor, the Mackinac County circuit court reversed on the ground that the Mackinac Tribe was not federally recognized and that federal tribal recognition is a matter for initial determination by the United States Department of the Interior. We granted defendant’s delayed application for leave to appeal. For the reasons explained below, we vacate the circuit court’s order and remand the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing consistent with this opinion.
Briefs:
Ninth Circuit Materials in Snoqualmie Tribe v. State of Washington
Federal Court Denies Injunction on Enbridge Line 3, Too
Here are the materials in Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians v. United States Army Corps of Engineers (D.D.C.):
Prior post here.
Minnesota COA Refuses to Shut Down Enbridge Line 3
Here is the order:
Crow Tribe Attempts to Reopen Crow Treaty Rights Suit
Here is the motion in Crow Tribe v. Repsis (D. Wyo.):
An excerpt:
But that was not the end of the story. In 2014, Clayvin B. Herrera, a Crow Tribe member, along with other Crow Tribe members in his hunting party, took three elk in the Bighorn National Forest. Mr. Herrera was cited for, and convicted of, violations of Wyoming hunting laws. Mr. Herrera’s case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that the Crow Tribe’s off-reservation treaty hunting right was not extinguished by Wyoming’s statehood. Herrera v. Wyoming, 139 S. Ct. 1686, 1700 (2019). In so doing, the Court also held “that Race Horse is repudiated to the extent it held that treaty rights can be impliedly extinguished at statehood.” Id. at 1697. Today, this Court has the opportunity to relieve the Crow Tribe from the judgment, based on Race Horse, that it entered more than 25 years ago.
This is precisely the sort of circumstance that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 was written to remedy. This Court’s Repsis judgment remains in force; but that judgment was based entirely on a case that has been expressly and entirely repudiated by the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed the vitality of the very same treaty right that that this Court and the Tenth Circuit found extinct. To allow this Court’s Repsis judgment—which might have been correct when it was made, but now has been unequivocally repudiated by the Supreme Court—to bar the Crow Tribe and its members from legally exercising their off-reservation treaty hunting rights would be a profound injustice. Equity requires that the Crow Tribe, and by extension its members, be relieved from this Court’s Repsis judgment, which this Court should now vacate.
Tulalip, Suquamish, Swinomish, and Upper Skagit Reach Settlement with State on Crab Harvest Estimates
Here are the materials in United States v. Washington, subproceeding 89-03 (W.D. Wash.):
D.C. Circuit Affirms Order that DAPL Easement is Illegal, but Does Not Require Shutdown of Pipeline
Here is the opinion in Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. United States Army Corps of Engineers.
An excerpt:
Lake Oahe, created when the United States Army Corps of Engineers flooded thousands of acres of Sioux lands in the Dakotas by constructing the Oahe Dam on the Missouri River, provides several successor tribes of the Great Sioux Nation with water for drinking, industry, and sacred cultural practices. Passing beneath Lake Oahe’s waters, the Dakota Access Pipeline transports crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Under the Mineral Leasing Act, 30 U.S.C. § 185, the pipeline could not traverse the federally owned land at the Oahe crossing site without an easement from the Corps. The question presented here is whether the Corps
violated the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321, by issuing that easement without preparing an environmental impact statement despite substantial criticisms from the Tribes and, if so, what should be done about that failure. We agree with the district court that the Corps acted unlawfully, and we affirm the court’s order vacating the easement while the Corps prepares an environmental impact statement. But we reverse the court’s order to the extent it directed that the pipeline be shut down and emptied of oil.
Briefs here.
Three Tribes Withdraw Laches as a Defense in US v. Washington Subproceeding 17-03
Here are the notices of withdrawal of laches as a defense in United States v. Washington subproceeding 17-03 (W.D. Wash.):
Sub 17-03 Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Notice of Withdrawal of Laches Defense 011921
Sub 17-03 The Tulalip Tribes Withdrawal of Laches Defense 011921
Sub 17-03 Upper Skagit Indian Tribe Withdrawal of Laches Defense 011921
As I wrote in 2015, I see this as a good thing — the possibility that the laches defense could be used against tribal treaty rights has hung like a smoggy haze over Indian country ever since 2005. It staggers me to think that tribes would do this to themselves for short-term, and probably illusory, gain.
Turtle Talk 
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