NYTs Article on Pyramid Lake Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Comeback

Here.

An excerpt:

In the mid-1970s, the Paiute Tribe opened a fish hatchery in Sutcliffe and stocked Pyramid Lake with strains of Lahontan cutthroat from nearby lakes. The water in Pyramid Lake is saltier than Lake Tahoe, and that kept out the lake trout. The tribe re-established a Lahontan cutthroat sport fishery and saved Pyramid Lake’s endangered Cui-ui sucker from extinction. Anglers bought tribal licenses, hauled ladders out into the lake’s bracing water and considered any catch that weighed 10 pounds or more a trophy.

In the late 1970s, a fish biologist identified what he thought were surviving specimens of the vanished Pyramid Lake strain of Lahontan cutthroat in a small creek near a 10,000-foot mountain on the border of Nevada and Utah called Pilot Peak. A Utah man used buckets to stock the rugged stream with trout in the early 1900s, but made no record, federal biologists say. Geneticists recently compared cutthroats from the Pilot Peak stream with mounts of giant Pyramid Lake trout and discovered an exact DNA match.

“They are the originals,” said Corene Jones, 39, the broodstock coordinator for the Lahontan National Fish Hatchery in Gardnerville, Nev.

Truckee-Carson Irrigation District Cert Petition

Here is the petition in Board of Directors, Truckee-Carson Irrigation District v. United States: Truckee-Carson Irrigation District Cert Petition.

Lower court materials here.

Questions presented:

1. Whether the Congress violates the separation of powers doctrine under Article III of the United States Constitution by enacting retroactive legislation that requires a court to accept a past federal regulation as currently valid, enforceable and immune from judicial challenge, the underlying premise of which was previously found by an all-inclusive federal water rights adjudication proceeding as violating vested water rights confirmed under a final federal district court water decree and judgment.

2. Whether a federal court has either the legal or equitable jurisdiction to make an award of pre-judgment or postjudgment in-kind interest, that is, interest that is payable in property, in this case water as interest, and not money.

Challenge to NIGC Rulemaking Authority Ongoing

Here are current materials in Crosby Lodge v. NIGC (D. Nev.), a challenge to NIGC authority to require that 60 percent of on-reservation gaming revenues of non-Indian gaming entities go to tribes (25 CFR 522.10(c)):

Crosby Lodge Motion for Summary Judgment

NIGC Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment

Earlier materials here.