A proposed water rights settlement for three Native American tribes in Arizona has taken a significant step forward with introduction in the Navajo Nation Council. It's the first of many approvals needed to finalize a deal that's been decades in the making.
A windmill draws water for livestock in Leupp, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation, Saturday, March 9, 2024. A proposed water rights settlement for three Native American tribes that carries a price tag larger than any such agreement enacted by Congress took a significant step forward late Monday, May 13, with introduction in the Navajo Nation Council. Navajo Attorney General Ethel Branch discusses a water rights settlement in the works for the tribe, Saturday, March 9, 2024, in Leupp, Ariz.
A landmark 1922 agreement divided the Colorado River basin water among seven western states but left out tribes. The tribes are seeking water from a mix of sources: the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River, aquifers and washes on tribal lands in northeastern Arizona.
A separate case that has played out over decades in Arizona over the Little Colorado River basin likely will result in far less water than the Navajo Nation says it needs because the tribe has to prove it has historically used the water. That’s hard to do when the tribe hasn’t had access to much of it, Navajo Attorney General Ethel Branch said.
About $1.75 billion of that would fund a pipeline from Lake Powell, one of the two largest reservoirs in the Colorado River system, on the Arizona-Utah border. The settlement would require the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to complete it by the end of 2040.“Whatever funding we walk away with is funding we don’t otherwise have,” Branch said. “It will be a challenge.”
The proposal also includes a combined 9,500 acre-feet per year of water from the Colorado River’s Lower Basin for Navajo and Hopi. Navajo additionally would have the right to draw 40,780 acre-feet from the Little Colorado River — about one-third of what’s estimated to reach the reservation annually.Arizona, in turn, gets certainty in the amount of water available throughout the state as it’s forced to cut back as the overall supply diminishes.
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