Colorado River Basin tribes work to protect their water rights - ICT
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Amid historic drought and federal calls for cuts, tribes along the river face difficult choices
- Author: High Country News
- Publish date: Sep 1, 2022
FILE. The water levels across the Colorado River continue to drop. Last June Lake Mead in Nevada dropped to its lowest levels since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s. (Photo by Mark Trahant, ICT)
Amid historic drought and federal calls for cuts, tribes along the river face difficult choices
Joseph Lee and Brett Marsh
HCN/Grist
Amid historic drought in the Colorado River Basin, the Gila River Indian Community is taking a drastic step to protect their own water resources. In a statement last week, Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis announced the tribe — located just south of Phoenix — would stop voluntarily contributing water to an important state reservoir. "We cannot continue to put the interests of all others above our own when no other parties seem committed to the common goal of a cooperative basin-wide agreement," the statement reads.
Since 2021, Lake Mead, a crucial water supply for the region, has been boosted by voluntary water contributions from the Gila River Indian Community and the Colorado River Indian Tribes. The Colorado River is a crucial source of water in the West, supplying water to 40 million people across seven states and Mexico. For years, tribes and communities in those states have received river water based on a complex allocation system, but last week, the federal government announced historic water cuts that will force Arizona, the most impacted state, to reduce water withdrawals from the Lake Mead reservoir by 21 percent next year. Lake Mead's levels are currently at a historic low of about 27 percent capacity.
NCAI Secretary Stephen Roe Lewis, March 20, 2022. Lewis is also governor of the Gila River Indian Community (Photo by Dalton Walker, Indian Country Today)
By contributing their water to Lake Mead at affordable rates, the Gila River Indian Community was essentially subsidizing Arizona's water supply while sacrificing an opportunity to sell that water at higher rates or put it to use on the reservation for agriculture or other industry. Now, facing cuts and other communities not willing to make sacrifices for the collective good, Gila River is putting its foot down. According to the statement, the lack of progress toward a sustainable water management plan left the tribe with no choice but to store the water independently rather than supporting the state water supply. "We are aware that this approach will have a very significant impact on the ability of the State of Arizona to make any meaningful commitment to water reductions in the basin state discussions," Lewis said in the statement.
(Related: Water shortage impact on tribes)
Meanwhile, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, which has also been contributing some of its water to help keep Lake Mead's levels up, has opted to continue storing water in the reservoir. In a press release, chairwoman Amelia Flores reiterated her tribe's commitment to an ongoing fallow and farming plan for their water allotments in response to the cuts. In other words, Colorado River Indian Tribes is sticking to a plan that forfeits the opportunity to maximize their agricultural and water revenues. "We recognize that the decades-long drought has reduced the water availability for all of us in the Basin," Flores said. "We continue to conserve water and develop ways to use less water as we adjust to higher temperatures, more wind and less precipitation."
These two decisions illustrate the difficult choices facing the 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin. Because tribes are sovereign governments, their water rights are determined with the federal government, rather than via the state, like cities and towns. Water rights allow tribes to maintain agricultural self-sufficiency, restore and steward the land, and support their communities. But to actually use their water, tribes face a unique set of challenges including inadequate infrastructure that limits some from accessing their water allocations. And for tribes still fighting to have their rights recognized, the ongoing shortage may make their battle even harder. As the region prepares for the cuts, tribes are working to ensure they have a voice during ongoing water management negotiations.
Amelia Flores is the chairwoman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes.
A 1908 Supreme Court decision established that tribes have the right to draw from the rivers that pass through their reservations in order to enable their self-sufficiency. But in its ongoing colonization of the West, the federal government filled the needs of white settlers before those of Indigenous nations. Through the Bureau of Reclamation, founded in 1902, hundreds of dams and reservoirs were constructed to divert millions of gallons of water from the Colorado River and other waterways to serve the growing settler populations of the West. Between 1980 and 2000, the basin was thriving, with water levels at its reservoirs nearly at full capacity. But even after two decades of drought, the unprecedented 27% reservoir capacity took officials by surprise. The Lower Colorado River Basin, one of the Bureau's six water regions, consists of the Mountain and Southwest states as well as much of Southern California and is where tensions between individual states and tribes around water conservation policies are coming to a head.
Twenty-two tribes in the basin have secured recognized water rights and allocations, which they reclaimed through a mix of legislation, settlement, and court decisions. These allocations total around 3.2 million acre-feet per year, which represents roughly a quarter of the river's annual supply. Arizona's total allocation is less than 3 million acre-feet per year. The Department of the Interior tasked Basin States and Tribes to come up with a voluntary water conservation plan to add 2 to 4 million more acre-feet of water to stabilize the Colorado River and its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
But according to a July 22 letter to Tanya Trujillo, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Department of the Interior, leaders from fourteen tribes in the Colorado River Basin argued that they were not being adequately consulted by either states or the Department of the Interior on a viable conservation plan.
The calcium markings on the rock formations in Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir, show the impact of a 17-year drought on water levels. If the level drops below 1,025 feet, a state report says Arizona will lose access to 480,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River, or enough water for about a million family households for one year. (Photo by Chris Richardson via Creative Commons)
The letter cites the federal government's legal obligations to tribes, notably an executive order issued by President Clinton in 2000 that requires federal departments and agencies to consult with tribal governments when planning policies that impact their communities. "We should not have to remind you - but we will again - that as our trustee, you must protect our rights, our assets, and people in addition to any action you take on behalf of the system," the letter said.
Nora McDowell is the former chairwoman of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and member of the Water and Tribes Initiative. She says that tribes have been forced to follow state and federal decisions about water use, even though tribes have successfully managed the river since time immemorial. She believes it is time for tribes to have a greater voice in conservation plans. "We always have been marginalized or not even consulted," McDowell said of the ongoing conservation planning. "But the difference here is that we have the rights to that water."
Meanwhile, even tribes with recognized water rights face an uphill battle to fully take advantage of their water allocations. Some tribes simply lack the necessary piping infrastructure for either farming or drinking water, are too geographically spread out, or have had their water resources contaminated by extractive industry.
On May 27, 18 years of negotiations came to a close when Congress passed a bill granting the Navajo Nation 81,500 acre-feet of water annually from Colorado River Basin sources within Utah. Yet it is estimated that between 30 percent and 40 percent of households on the Navajo Nation, spanning territory in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, do not have running water. It is unclear how much these new water cutbacks will impact development of critical infrastructure for the Navajo, which will take years.
Nora McDowell of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe believes it will take a collective effort to ensure a sustainable future for the Colorado River and water access in the region. That effort will require major changes to water management and tribes' role in it. "It's a critical time right now and people need to wake up and see what we're dealing with," she said. "We can't keep doing what we've been doing for the last 100 years."
(Image: High Country News)
This High Country News story is published in collaboration with Grist.
Joseph Lee is an Aquinnah Wampanoag writer who lives in New York City. Brett Marsh is an Environmental Justice Fellow for Grist.
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Ranchers and farmers in Arizona have to cut back on their water usage by leaving fields go fallow and selling off cattle to survive.
The states are going to have to come up with a solution to the amount used by each state or the feds will do it for them.
The agreement as to the allocation of water from the river is over 100 years old with some adjustments over the years.
The Southwest has grown in both population and number of farms and ranches a hundredfold in the past decades.
turning off the global warming deniers spigots down stream from glen canyon dam might help...
If the tribes used the old capitalism ploy they could stop donating the water back to the system and sell it at the highest price that they could get. Those that need infrastructure approach venture capitalists and work out a deal for infrastructure money in return for a % of the profits.
What is really amazing is that some tribes that have been there for 10,000 years have no water rights.
Hualapai tribal land in northwestern Arizona borders 100 miles of the Colorado River, but the tribe can’t draw from it. They have no water rights to Colorado River water. They have to truck their water in, talk about a screwed-up federal system.
The article mentions one of the reasons some tribes can't use the water is the land is contaminated...Well no shit, the Navajo reservations is contaminated from the uranium mining that the fed did there for years and the largest radioactive spill in US history. 50 years later it's still a super fund site that is still being worked on.
the tribes need to negotiate hard when the thirsty arrive with hat,... er, cup in hand.
They sure do.
At this point, I really don't know how anyone can deny that at least we have global warming. The fact that we have an impact on the environment.
They do on a daily basis. As the price of meat and produce keeps going up it may dawn on them that the areas that are running short of water are also huge meat and produce producers.
It's also a bad time for a war in Europes bread belt.
There are always people who rub their paws together in time of crisis, Mother Courage style.
Some people are not interested in solving any of our crises.
Yes, it is.
The states thus far have been unable to come to some type of agreement on the allocations of the water which will soon be settled by the feds.
The Gila River tribe is pissed that none of the states seem to want to come to an agreement. The tribes have not been using their full allocation and would like two things.
1. The state to work together to help solve the problem
2. That the tribes get a seat at the table which has been, thus far, non-existent.
There message is quite clear.
I remember reading years ago that Thomas Malthus was wrong in his analysis of famine. His observation that human population grows exponentially while food production grows arithmetically wasn't behind what caused food shortages. An historical analysis showed time and time again that during historic starvations there was enough food to feed everyone but people simply didn't have entitlements to the food. The Irish famines are recent examples where the net transfer of food was out of Ireland and into England.
But we seem to be reaching something different now on a global level. Now we are confronting limits to growth. The goldfish has finally grown to the size of the bowl.
There's a reason why Soylent Green was made out of people.
Malthus's analogy is valid except for this kicker, we can create food we cannot create water, desalinization plants aside. The continuing drought, the overuse of a finite resource and trying to make arid and semi-arid land farmland without much of a thought to the future has put us in this position. IMO, we have gone beyond our limit of growth.
The native people's ability to survive and prosper in this environment was their ability not to overuse a finite resource and various farming techniques that are available to us but unused. Even if we adopted their use the size of the population would negate their success. One only has to take a hard look at golf courses, artificial lakes and ponds which serve no purpose except to ''look pretty'' throughout AZ, NV, CA and other western states. Green lawns belong in the midwest and south not in a desert. We, as humans feel we can control mother nature through money and brute force, we still haven't come to grips with the fact that mother nature can and will kick our ass anytime she sees fit.
Unless there are some major changes in the west regarding water and it's best use we are bound to head down a road that is a sure dead end.
It should read, historical analysis not Malthus analogy.
Global farming these days is dependent upon fertilizers that are synthesized in chemical plants and a lot of energy is used to make them.
Wikipedia (The Green Revolution) points this out:
Correct me if I am wrong, but it is not only water that is a finite resource but land itself. There is a reason people are cutting down the rain forests in South America.
Over and over again, it looks to me like there are too many people and we need economic models that are not dependent upon "perpetual growth."
That perpetual growth seems to involve perpetual growth in human population and environmental extraction.
The environmental extraction is done with little to no forethought to the consequences except how much profit can we make.
Hey, do you subscribe to Netflix?
There is a documentary on there I think you might like:
Gather (film)
It opens with this quote from Crazy Horse:
I'm generally pessimistic that capitalism can save itself from itself. We seem to be on a path toward Soylent Green, at best and more probably, The Road (2009 film) .
So if there is a way out of the trap of capitalism, maybe it will have to come from outside capitalism.
Yes, I have Netflix and I'll check it out.
The Seven Fire Prophecy of the Ojibwe
We are in the 7th Fire and will we light the 8th Fire or destroy ourselves?
I think that you may enjoy the book, ''Black Elk Speaks''
Gakina Awiiya
I have only had a quick minute to scan this.
Is there evidence that these prophesies are ancient or are they contemporary interpolations?
(I am reminded that Jesus was a Jewish prophet under Roman occupation.)
Yes, there is evidence that the date back some 500 years which is the start of the great migration of the Anishinaabe people to the ''Land where food grows on water'' which is manoomin (wild rice).
Much like the ongoing lie that native nations did have a written language The Ojibwe have/had a written language that dates back 1,000 years. There are examples in the Smithsonian that are dated 500 to 600 years old and they are the ''Sacred Scrolls'' of the Ojibwe and are written on birch bark.
So there would have been some first encounters with europeans at this point and these were prophetic visions into the implications of those encounters?
The first known encounter with Europeans was around 1615 in the Hudson Bay area in European history our oral history supports that time frame. From there, our mirgration took us even further west where we controlled territory from Hudson Bay to as far west as present day MN and ND across the Central Canadian plains.
The Sacred Scrolls contain important times and events in our history and the only ones that have access to them are the mide's of the Midewiwin society also known as The Grand Medicine Society.
The reason I asked is Wikipedia refers to sporadic contact with Europeans for nearly a hundred years before the British settled at Plymouth:
And the Fourth Fire makes reference to the Light Skinned race.
There are references to encounters with whites before 1615 but not encounters with the Ojibwe but with other tribes.
The Ojibwe and Cree became the most powerful of the fur traders and they controlled vast swathes of land across Canada and the US. This led to a new race of people known as the Michif Cree which speak a separate language of the same name or in English, Metis. Canada recognizes them as a separate grouping of peoples under the name of ''indigenous''. There are three grouping in Canada. First Nations in the US are called Native Americans, the Inuit in the US are called Alaska Natives, and the Metis are classified as Indigenous. The US only has two and does not recognize the Michif/Cree but there are thousands living in the US primarily in MI, WI, MN and ND. In ND the Ojibwe and Metis share a reservation.
The Michif/Cree language is a combination of French, Ojibwe and Cree. The most famous of the Michif people is Louis Riel known as the founder of Manitoba. Today the Metis are the largest group in Canada or the US and number around half a million.
The Metis are closely related to both the Ojibwe and the Cree. The song ''Red River Valley'' was written by a Metis woman to her British Lover before the start of the Metis Uprising in the Red River Valley of MN and Canada. This is a whole other chapter in Metis history.
So we are a bit far afield from where we started but outside of the US/European view the complexities of the Cree/Ojibwe/Metis are complicated and a huge part of Canadian history and US history which of course, as usual, the US is blind to.
What we do know is that the light-skinned race did not come bearing only a handshake but with death and destruction. Which is the most prominent ''gift'' that they delivered to us.
Could there have been news of Europeans that spread across the continent at the speed of foot steps?
Visions warning about light skinned people before light skinned people have actually been encountered have to be getting their inspiration from something already known in the world.
At least that is how the rational person in me expects the world to work.
I read a book around 20 years ago called The Axemaker's Gift. It changed the way I see the world.
You've never heard of the native telegraph called smoke signals?
The Ojibwe were originally from the east coast of Canada so the distance would not be that great.
I've not read the Axmakers Gift so I can't comment on it.
I have but I do not have an appreciation for what kinds of information could be passed with it.
Anyway, as the world looks more and more apocalyptic each day and it seems that capitalism is incapable of walking away from its addiction to extraction and exploitation, the prophesies look not only prophetic but perhaps inevitable.
What comes after this car crackup that is our industrial age?
I was kidding you, Revillug.
Yes, the 8th fire is getting dimmer by the day.
I honestly don't know, but it seems that we could become just another empire that is in the dust bin of history with the rest of the world following us.
I'm disappointed.
I was hoping for a quick (and free) seminar on smoke signals.