1. “Whether the United States effected a physical taking of a California water district’s property right to beneficial use of Santa Clara River water when the government appropriated the Santa Clara River water for the United States’ own use—namely, an increase in the flow of water in the Santa Clara River for the public purpose of fish preservation—by preventing the water district from diverting the Santa Clara River water into the water district’s own facilities where it could be put to the district’s beneficial use.”
2. “Whether United’s Complaint alleging that the Santa Clara River water the government appropriated by reducing the amount of Santa Clara River water that United could divert at the Vern Freeman Diversion dam (‘Freeman Diversion’) and put to United’s beneficial use, as permitted under United’s California water license and permit, sufficiently alleged a physical taking of a portion of United’s California water rights.”
3. “Whether the governmental action at issue here, when examined as a physical taking, is ripe for adjudication and within the subject matter jurisdiction of the trial court based on United’s uncontroverted allegation that the governmental action appropriated a portion of United’s property right to beneficial use of Santa Clara River water beginning in 2017.”
1. “The RPAs therefore operate as ‘regulatory restrictions on the use of’ a natural resource and ‘do not constitute physical takings.’”
2. “United’s complaint therefore alleges a taking that is regulatory in nature.”
3. “A regulatory takings claim, as alleged here, is not ripe until the rights holder obtains a final agency action. . . . Having yet to have been denied an incidental-taking permit under Section 10 of the ESA, United has therefore not pleaded a ripe takings claim, and the district court properly dismissed its complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
