Here are the materials in Crow Allottees Association v. Bureau of Indian Affairs (D. Mont.):
water rights
Bob Anderson on Water Rights, Water Quality, and Regulatory Jurisdiction in Indian Country
Robert T. Anderson has posted his paper, “Water Rights, Water Quality, and Regulatory Jurisdiction in Indian Country,” forthcoming in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, on SSRN.
The abstract:
In the seminal Indian water rights case, Winters v. United States (1908), the Court posed this question: “The Indians had command of the lands and the waters—command of all their beneficial use, whether kept for hunting, ‘and grazing roving herds of stock,’ or turned to agriculture and the arts of civilization. Did they give up all this?” The Court’s answer was no, and since then a large body of law has developed around Indian water rights, although the primary focus has been on the amount of water reserved for various tribal purposes. While Indian nations use property rights theories to protect their water resources from loss to non-Indian use, they also deploy their inherent governmental authority through tribal water codes and the federal Clean Water Act to protect water quality. As competition for water resources grows and development pressures adversely affect water quality, Indian Nations and their neighbors face new challenges in defining Indian water rights for instream habitat protection and traditional consumptive uses.
This article reviews the nature of Indian water rights—both on and off reservations—and the use of tribal sovereignty to protect those rights in terms of quantity and quality. The case law in this arena is sparse, and the ability to predict an all-or-nothing litigated outcome is correspondingly limited. Under these circumstances, parties would be best off to default to the usual presumptions recognizing inherent tribal authority over on-reservation water resources and state authority outside of Indian country. From this jurisdictional baseline, tribes, states and the United States should cooperate to ensure that a given regulatory regime protects water quality and access to water.
Highly recommended!
Anishinaabe nibi inaakonigewin (water law) gathering
Announcement from Professor Aimée Craft:
I hope that you will consider joining us for the Anishinaabe nibi (water) gathering taking place in the Whiteshell this June. After a few years of gathering with Elders on a project relating to Anishinaabe nibi inaakonigewin (water law), we are inviting people to come and learn about water teachings in an outdoor teaching lodge format. We want to focus on youth participation and attendance.
Please share with your networks and people you think would be interested in attending. All are welcome.
To RSVP and for questions: watergathering2015@gmail.com
*Also, please consider bringing a young person to accompany you or assist us with travel funding for youth.*
Montana Supreme Court Briefs in re: Crow Water Compact
Here are the materials in In the Matter of the Adjudication of the Existing and Reserved Water Rights to the Use of Water, Both Surface and Underground, of the Crow Tribe of Indians of the State of Montana:
Michigan Radio on the Proposed Lake Huron Nuclear Waste Site
Here.
Includes a brief quote from Vernon Roote, Saugeen First Nation Chief.
Update in Agua Caliente Water Rights Case — Materials re Petition to Appeal to CA9
New Scholarship on Arizona v. California
Amy Cordalis and Daniel Cordalis have published “Indian Water Rights: How Arizona v. California Left an Unwanted Cloud over the Colorado River Basin” in the Arizona Journal of Environmental Law.
The abstract:
The Colorado River is one of the most important rivers in the world. The river’s 1,400-mile journey from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez takes on waters from seven states and from the reservations of twenty-eight Indian tribes along the way, 244,000 square miles of river basin in all. The Colorado River is also heavily managed: Its waters are allocated through a complex body of laws collectively referred to as the “Law of the River,” which includes an international treaty, two interstate water compacts, numerous federal and state statutes, and more than a dozen Indian water rights settlements. For thousands of years before the Law of the River, however, American Indians lived and irrigated within the Colorado River Basin, making due with its characteristically seasonal rains and difficult growing conditions. Today, in a cruel but all-too common twist for tribes, twelve of the basin’s twenty-eight tribes have not had their water rights completely quantified, leaving many of the basin’s oldest inhabitants without a legally secure source of water. This begs the question of how the Law of the River developed such that the Colorado River is already over-allocated but Indian water rights are to a large extent unaccounted for, and tribes—occupying and using water in the basin since time immemorial—are left struggling for whatever remaining drops they can squeeze out of the basin. And, perhaps more to the point, the question arises how Arizona v. California recognized this exact issue in the Lower Colorado River Basin and could not to fully resolve it. This article finally takes the position that tribes, the states, and the federal government must work together to settle Indian water rights claims to provide certainty to all Colorado River basin water users amidst growing undertainty from polulation growth and climate change.
Indigenous activists among those killed worldwide for protecting the environment.
Here’s the BBC article.
Turtle Talk 
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