Federal Courts Reject Challenges to White Earth Water Protection Ordinance

The White Earth Reservation Groundwater and Surface Water Protection Ordinance requires all new high-capacity pumps and wells on the Reservation to be permitted by the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. The White Earth Reservation Business Committee enacted the Ordinance to safeguard the waters, fisheries, wild rice, and other natural resources—resources that were guaranteed to the Band by treaty in 1867 and that sustain hundreds of Tribal members’ subsistence lifestyle—from the devastating effects of high-capacity water appropriations, primarily by non-Indian agricultural interests. On March 5, 2025, in Vipond v. DeGroat, 24-cv-03125 (D. Minn.), U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez denied the plaintiff irrigator’s motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin ongoing White Earth Tribal Court proceedings in which the Band seeks a declaration that the irrigator’s proposal to pump 65 million gallons of water each summer from the Wild Rice River is validly subject to tribal regulatory authority. Judge Menendez stayed the federal case pending the exhaustion of tribal court remedies. And on March 21, 2025, in R.D. Offutt Farms Co. v. White Earth Division of Natural Resources, 24-cv-01600 (D. Minn.), U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan dismissed an industrial potato producer’s challenge to the Ordinance for lack of jurisdiction. Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C. represents the White Earth Division of Natural Resources and its divisional director in the cases.