Tom C. Clark

“ In an appropriate proceeding there would be a determination of not only the extent of such a servitude but the value thereof based upon the difference between the value of respondents' property before and after the taking. Rather than a stoppage of the government project, this is the avenue of redress open to respondents. Since we have set aside the judgments of both the Court of Appeals and the District Court, it is appropriate that we make clear that we do not in any way pass upon or indicate any view regarding the validity of respondents' water right claims. ”

“ It likewise found that the United States was authorized to acquire, either by physical seizure or otherwise, such of the rights of the claimants as it needed to operate the Project and that this power could not be restricted by state law. However, it found that no such authorized seizure had occurred because the Government had not sufficiently identified what rights it was seizing, and because of this equivocation of the federal officials, there was a trespass rather than a taking. ”

“ To require the full natural flow of the river to go through the dam would force the abandonment of this portion of a project which has not only been fully authorized by the Congress but paid for through its continuing appropriations. Moreover, it would prevent the fulfillment of the contracts made by the United States with the Water and Utility Districts, which are petitioning in No. 115. The Government would, indeed, be 'stopped in its tracks * * *.' Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., supra, 337 U.S. at 704, 69 S.Ct. at 1468, 93 L.Ed. 1628.
The physical solution has no less direct effect. ”