WASHINGTON – Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren told a congressional subcommittee here last week that the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project will ensure every Navajo home can access the fundamental human right of clean water.
Meeting with Congressman Clifford Bentz, chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife & Fisheries, the President outlined the need for congressional action to support the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments, H.R. 3977.
“The NGWSP is a testament to our resolve to ensure that every Navajo home can access the fundamental human right of clean water,” President Nygren said. “We call upon Congress to support H.R. 3977 and to move swiftly to secure our future.”
He said the critical water infrastructure project that uses San Juan River water promises to quench the long-standing thirst of the Navajo Nation and its neighbors.
NGWSP, originally passed in 2009, is a cornerstone in the mission to deliver safe, potable water to more than a quarter-million people who now rely on depleting and substandard groundwater sources.
The expansive project that encompasses some 300 miles of pipeline will divert 37,376 acre-feet of water annually from the San Juan River Basin. The project addresses the dire need of more than 43 Navajo chapters, the City of Gallup, NM, and the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
With the proposed legislative amendments, President Nygren has championed an increase in the project’s authorized cost ceiling by $725.7 million, establishment of OM&R trust funds, expansion of the service area, capping of repayment obligations, land transfers, deferred construction provisions, extension of the completion deadline, and the elimination of double taxation that currently burdens the project’s progress.
He is advocating for a May hearing to meet the critical timing required for Congress to consider and act upon the amendments. A hearing would mitigate the risk of the settlement’s collapse under the current Dec. 31, 2024, deadline.
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