Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, No. 11-889; U.S. Supreme Court; opinion by Sotomayor, J.; decided June 13, 2013. On certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
The Red River Compact is a congressionally sanctioned agreement that allocates water rights within the Red River basin among the states of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. The area it governs is divided into five separate subdivisions called "Reaches," each of which is further divided into smaller "subbasins." At issue here are rights under the compact to water located in Oklahoma's portion of Reach II, subbasin 5. In Reach II, the compact — recognizing that Louisiana lacks suitable reservoir sites to store water during high flow periods and that the upstream states (Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas) were unwilling to release their own stored water for the benefit of a downstream state — granted control over the water in four upstream subbasins (subbasins 1 through 4) to the states in which each subbasin is located and required that water in a fifth subbasin, subbasin 5, be allowed to flow to Louisiana at certain minimum levels. Section 5.05(b)(1) of the compact gives the states "equal rights" to the use of subbasin 5's waters when the flow is 3,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) or more, "provided no state is entitled to more than 25 percent of the water in excess of 3,000 [CFS]." Under the compact, states are also entitled to continue with their intrastate water administration.
