Attorney: Heather Kendall-Miller
Case Update
On January 7, 2005, Katie John filed a law suit in the District of Alaska challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior's final rule implementing the prior Katie John mandate as being too restrictive in its scope. Katie John's complaint alleges that the Department should have included Alaska Native allotments as public lands and further that the federal government's interest in water extends upstream and downstream from the Conservation Units established under ANILCA. The state of Alaska intervened and challenged the regulations as illegally extending federal jurisdiction to state waters. On September 9, 2009 Judge Holland entered an order upholding the agency's final rule as reasonable. While rejecting Katie John's claim that the agency had a duty to identify all of its federally reserved water rights in upstream and downstream waters, the court stated that the agency could do so at some future time if necessary to full the purposes of the reserve. The case will be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Consolidated with State
v. Norton.
Photo: Katie John
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