Yellen v. Imperial Irrigation District Collection, 1970 - 1972 (MSS 677)

The Reclamation Act of 1902 authorized the United States government to create water projects to help open arid lands to small farmers. The original act included provisions to ensure wide distribution of the benefits of federal projects and to prevent land speculation and monopolies. These provisions are at the center of contention in the two trials contained in this collection. Section 5 of the Reclamation Act provided that no right to the use of water for land in private ownership should be sold for a tract exceeding 160 acres to any one landowner. Section 5 also required that recipients of federal water benefits live on or near the land that was irrigated.

The Imperial Valley is an area located in southeastern California and lies below sea level. It is an arid desert in its natural state but irrigation began in the Valley long before the federal water projects. Since 1901, a privately-funded delivery and distribution system had harnessed Colorado River water for irrigation via the Alamo Canal. This canal ran for over sixty miles through Mexico before re-entering the United States to irrigate the Imperial Valley, and continued in existence until 1940, well after the building of the All American Canal. Therefore, the Imperial Valley landowners argued that they were exempt from the 160-acre and residency requirements because they possessed pre-existing rights to the Colorado River water.

When the seven states of the Colorado River Basin executed the 1922 Colorado River Compact they included Article VIII stating, "[p]resent perfected rights to the beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River System are unimpaired by this compact." Further, when the Boulder Canyon Project Act became effective in 1929, (authorizing funding for the Hoover and Imperial Dams, as well as the All American Canal) it required the Secretary of the Interior to observe rights to Colorado River water that had been perfected under state law at the time the law became effective. By 1929, the Imperial Valley was already irrigating 424,145 acres of land without any restrictions as to size or residency.

Dr. Ben Yellen, a long-time social justice activist in the Imperial Valley, brought the initial suit against the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) in federal district court to enforce the 160-acre limitation. He and former farmworker-residents of the Imperial Valley argued that the non-enforcement of the limitation denied these farmers of modest income an opportunity to buy land. The United States Supreme Court later upheld the farmers right to bring this cause of action even though the farmers could not, with certainty, establish that they would be able to purchase land even if the 160-acre limitation were upheld. Dr. Yellen also instituted a lawsuit against the IID for enforcement of the residency requirement.

In 1964, the Department of the Interior, under which the Bureau of Reclamation functions, reversed decades of administrative practice, and agreed that non-enforcement of the 160-acre limitation in the Imperial Valley was inconsistent with reclamation law principles. When the Interior Department attempted to enforce the provision, the IID sought and won an injunction to stop enforcement. The United States then brought suit against the IID and the partial official transcript of that action is contained in the files of this collection.

The subsequent history of the cases is not contained within this collection. The "United States v. Imperial Irrigation District" case was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which held that the 160-acre provision should be enforced against the IID landowners. The victory for Dr. Yellen and the small farmers of the Imperial Valley was short-lived.

In 1980, the case, consolidated with Yellen's earlier lawsuit and a State of California lawsuit, was conclusively settled by the United States Supreme Court when it reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision. Justice Byron R. White, writing for a unanimous Court, in the case now titled, "Bryant v. Yellen," held that Imperial Valley landowners as of 1929 (the year the Boulder River Canyon Project Act became effective), had "present perfected rights" (now in trust with the IID) that could be exercised without regard to the land limitation provisions.

Ben Yellen Papers (MSS 193); Ben Yellen Correspondence with Arthur Brunwasser (MSS 305); Ben Yellen Correspondence with Charles L. Smith (MSS 667).