Yurok Tribe v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Background

The Yurok Tribe and other plaintiffs challenged the Bureau of Reclamation’s 2019–2024 Klamath Project Operations Plan and a 2019 biological opinion evaluating the plan’s effects on coho and Chinook salmon. The parties later resolved a request for a preliminary injunction by agreeing that the Bureau would operate the Klamath Project under an Interim Plan. The court stayed the litigation under that agreement on March 27, 2020.

The motions concerned an April 6, 2021, order from the Oregon Water Resources Department. That order prohibited the Bureau from releasing water from Upper Klamath Lake classified as “stored” under Oregon law beyond what was authorized for irrigation. The federal defendants argued that they could not comply with both that order and the Interim Plan because the Interim Plan and the Bureau’s obligations under the Endangered Species Act required releasing stored water.

Requests to Lift the Stay

The federal defendants sought to lift the stay for the limited purpose of filing a crossclaim against the Oregon Water Resources Department and the Klamath Water Users Association for declaratory and injunctive relief from the Oregon order. They also sought permission for the plaintiffs to file a supplemental complaint against the Oregon Water Resources Department. The federal defendants, plaintiffs, and Klamath Tribes proposed limits to protect sovereign immunity and prevent the litigation from adjudicating or quantifying tribal water rights or deciding whether the United States breached a trust obligation. They also proposed dividing the crossclaim into separate phases.

The Klamath Water Users Association argued that the stay should be lifted without those limits. It relied on alleged noncompliance with the Interim Plan and changed circumstances, including the dismissal of related Oregon cases. It also submitted a partial summary-judgment motion arguing that a consultation requirement in Endangered Species Act section 7(a)(2) did not apply to certain Klamath Project operations involving storing, diverting, delivering, and using water for irrigation.

Court’s Analysis

The court found that circumstances had significantly changed since the stay was imposed. The parties’ agreement that litigation should proceed was itself a sufficient changed circumstance. The Oregon Water Resources Department’s order was another significant change because the question whether the Bureau had to follow that order while complying with the Interim Plan and federal law did not exist when the parties agreed to the stay.

The court gave less weight to the dismissal of the Oregon cases because that dismissal was already pending when the stay was imposed. The court nevertheless found that the parties’ agreement and the Oregon order justified lifting the stay.

Ruling

The court lifted the stipulated stay for the limited purpose of litigating the federal defendants’ crossclaim and the plaintiffs’ supplemental complaint. The court allowed the federal defendants to divide the crossclaim into separate phases and incorporated the proposed limits designed to protect tribal sovereignty and avoid adjudicating tribal water rights. Terms of the stay not directly changed by the order remain in effect, including the Interim Plan.

The court also stated that parties may raise disputes about what may be litigated, or other issues requiring quick resolution because of their effect on 2022 water-allocation issues, at the next case-management conference. Separately, the court denied the Klamath Irrigation District’s request to participate as an amicus without prejudice because its proposed brief focused on the merits of the crossclaim rather than the request to lift the stay. The court said the district could renew that request after the crossclaim was filed.