## Facts

- The City of Virginia Beach (Virginia Beach), a municipal corporation, planned to secure an additional municipal water supply to serve a growing population.
- Virginia Beach proposed building a pump station and a pipeline system to withdraw water from the Roanoke River and transport it for municipal use.
- Virginia Beach filed a federal complaint seeking declaratory relief against Champion International Corporation, Weyerhaeuser Company, and a defendant class consisting of all owners of riparian lands on the Roanoke River below the Roanoke Rapids Dam (the Roanoke River Riparians).
- Virginia Beach requested a declaration that the Roanoke River Riparians had no right to use the water that Virginia Beach intended to divert from the Roanoke River.
- The complaint alleged that existing waterworks on the Roanoke River were built for flood control purposes.
- The complaint further alleged that, after downstream flow requirements were met, exceedingly large quantities of surplus water remained available.
- Virginia Beach alleged that the volume it planned to divert would be a minute fraction of the available water and would not damage any Roanoke River Riparian.

## Issues

1. Whether Virginia Beach’s complaint presented a justiciable “actual controversy” supporting federal declaratory relief concerning claimed downstream riparian rights in water Virginia Beach proposed to divert from the Roanoke River.
2. Whether, as framed by the complaint, downstream riparian landowners below the Roanoke Rapids Dam possessed enforceable rights that could restrict Virginia Beach’s proposed municipal diversion.

## Decision

- The underlying opinion or order in *City of Virginia Beach v. Champion International Corp.*, Civ. 84-10-N (1984), is not available in the open materials referenced here.
- Because the decision text is not accessible from those sources, the court’s disposition (including whether the case was dismissed or decided on the merits) and the court’s reasoning cannot be stated reliably without the slip opinion or a verified report of the ruling.

## Legal Principles

- A federal declaratory-judgment action requires an actual controversy between parties with adverse legal interests that is sufficiently definite and immediate to warrant judicial relief.
- In disputes over proposed withdrawals and diversions, the existence and scope of legally protected riparian interests are typically questions of the applicable state-law water-rights doctrine, which may affect whether downstream owners can claim injury or seek relief.
- When a case is cited only by civil action number and year and the opinion text is not publicly available, any account of the holding, procedural posture, or doctrinal test applied must be limited to what can be confirmed from reliable secondary descriptions of the case materials.

## Conclusion

*City of Virginia Beach v. Champion International Corp.*, Civ. 84-10-N (1984), arose from Virginia Beach’s plan to construct facilities to withdraw and transport Roanoke River water for municipal supply and its effort to obtain a declaration that downstream riparian owners below the Roanoke Rapids Dam lacked rights to use the water Virginia Beach intended to divert; however, without access to the court’s opinion or order in open sources, the case’s holding, disposition, and reasoning cannot be reported with certainty.


City of Virginia Beach v. Champion International Corp., Civ. 84-10-N (1984)