Quantification Settlement Agreement Cases

Opinion

ROBIE, Acting P. J.

For the better part of 100 years, citizens of the American Southwest have been fighting over the right to water from the Colorado River. While the United States Supreme Court largely settled the interstate conflict over that water nearly 50 years ago, in Arizona v. California (1963) 373 U.S. 546 [10 L.Ed.2d 542, 83 S.Ct. 1468], the court’s resolution of the dispute between the states—which limited California’s share of the river to far less than the state can use—ensured the fight would continue within the state for years to come.

*773And so it has. In 2003, three of the…