## Facts

- The United States, through the Bureau of Reclamation, developed the Columbia Basin Project, a federal irrigation project that diverts Columbia River water under federal appropriative rights.
- The Bureau contracted with local irrigation districts to operate and maintain project facilities and deliver water to irrigated farm units.
- After project water is applied to land, portions seep, drain, or return as waste, seepage, or return-flow water (WSRF) within the project area.
- J.M. Hanson owned land within the project boundaries and sought a state permit to appropriate water from a stream crossing his property.
- The stream’s flow included WSRF water that originated as project-delivered water and had not yet left the project.
- The Department of Ecology granted Hanson’s permit to appropriate water from the stream.
- The Bureau and irrigation districts appealed to the Pollution Control Hearings Board (PCHB), asserting the permit impaired the federal project’s prior appropriative rights.
- The PCHB granted summary judgment for the Bureau and districts; the superior court reversed and remanded for factfinding; the irrigation districts sought review in the Washington Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether WSRF water derived from project-delivered water, while still within the federal irrigation project boundaries, remains subject to the federal project’s prior appropriative rights.
2. Whether the Department of Ecology may issue a new state appropriative permit to a landowner for such WSRF water when it would interfere with the project’s prior rights.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court reversed the superior court and reinstated the PCHB’s summary judgment.
- The court held the Department erred in granting Hanson’s permit.
- Because the water had not left the irrigation project boundaries, it remained subject to the federal government’s appropriative right and could not be reappropriated to another.

## Legal Principles

- Under prior appropriation, a state-issued water right may not impair earlier vested appropriative rights.
- Water diverted under a federal irrigation project’s appropriative right, including WSRF water, remains within that right while it remains inside the project system and boundaries.
- Physical presence of WSRF water on a landowner’s property within the project does not, by itself, make the water available for a new, separate appropriation.
- A state agency lacks authority to permit reappropriation of project water still within the project when the permit conflicts with the project’s prior appropriation.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated a state permit allowing a landowner to appropriate return and seepage water within a federal irrigation project, holding that such water remains part of the project’s prior appropriation until it leaves the project boundaries and therefore cannot be reappropriated through a conflicting state permit.


Dep’t of Ecology v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 118 Wash. 2d 761, 827 P.2d 275 (Wash. 1992)