This week, President Nygren, Speaker Curley and several council delegates were back in Washington to present testimony and lobby for four Navajo water rights settlement bills.
The vice chairman of the Hopi Tribe, chairwoman of the Yavapai-Apache Nation, governors of the Pueblo of Taos and Pueblo of Acoma and leaders of Montana tribes were there, too.
The impact of these settlements will be significant. If Congress authorizes these settlements – and if Tuesday was any indication, it’s looking good – the impact will be amazing.
If Congress doesn’t authorize them or cuts the funding they call for, it will leave the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, San Juan Southern Paiutes, New Mexico pueblos and Montana tribes needing water into the future.
At Tuesday’s three-and-a-half hour hearing before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries, statements by tribal chairmen and presidents, Democratic and Republican congressmen and congresswomen, the Bureau of Reclamation deputy commissioner of operations, and the assistant secretary of Indian Affairs for Interior were all overwhelmingly supportive of $12 billion worth of Indian water settlements.
When the 1922 Colorado River Compact was being discussed, tribes were left out despite their rights to the water going back to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1908 Winters Doctrine.
In the early 1900s, Navajos didn’t use a western form of governance, as far as the Winters Doctrine is concerned. Navajos had their own form of governance. Some know this as the Naach’id, a council of peace and war chiefs.
It was not until 1924 under the Navajo Business Council that the tribe engaged officially with American governance. The tribe’s business council was established in 1922 by the Interior Secretary but that was only to certify mineral leases on the Navajo Nation.
The Navajo Nation started to advocate for water rights to rivers on its borders in the 1960s when Raymond Nakai was chairman. You may never have heard of him but he was among the first progressive Navajo leaders to seek Navajo rights.
Decades passed, and the history of Indian water law grew in complexity.
The Navajo Nation came close to a Colorado River water right settlement in 2010. It, too, was called the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Right Settlement. The council approved it. Then U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, a water lawyer from Phoenix, said he wouldn’t be able to get Congress to approve $800 million for infrastructure. So, it was reduced to $300 million.
In 2012, both the Navajo and Hopi councils voted no. Council delegates Russell Begaye and Jonathan Nez were among those who voted against the settlement. As Navajo presidents, both tried to get a settlement through but couldn’t.
It was thought by some at the time that it might be 50-to-75 years before the settlement parties might come together to try again. The current 25-year-old megadrought we’re currently in began in 2000, and that could have been a disincentive to share water.
That’s what makes this time so exciting. In only 19 months into the terms of a new president, a new speaker and new council, a seasoned Navajo attorney general and seasoned legal counsel to the president plowed the road and got us here. The Navajo people may now be only a few months away from having a 60-year-old quest fulfilled.
– George Hardeen
