Paiute tribe wins water rights victory; Truckee’s water overstretched
Pyramid Lake was a vital fishery for thousands of years, but the tribe had no legal rights to Truckee River water until 1908 when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that when the federal government established Indian reservations it implicitly reserved sufficient land and water to serve its purpose and that non-Indians could not interfere with a tribe’s reserved water. The precedent-setting decision also recognized prior appropriation rights for Western tribes.The court’s opinion gave the Paiute the most senior claims on Truckee River dating back to 1859 when land for the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation was first set aside.