Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral.com website (Arlyssa D. BecentiDebra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
March 1, 2024
For the past 60 years, Navajo leaders have worked to settle water claims in Arizona. The aim of the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement is to affirm and quantify the nation’s rights to water in the state and to secure funding to build much needed water delivery infrastructure to homes on the Navajo Nation, according to a summary of the agreement.
“When we took office last year there was a huge push for us to start talking about our water rights, our water claims,” Navajo Nation Speaker Crystalyne Curley told The Arizona Republic. “It’s been far too long, going through COVID, climate change, drought that we are facing every year, we had to take into account of what we want to secure for the next 100 years.”
The U.S. Supreme Court held last summer that the United States did not have an affirmative treaty or trust obligation to identify and account for Navajo Nation water rights on the Colorado River. Curley said that ruling was a pivotal moment that led the Navajo Nation and its water rights negotiation team to focus on completing on the settlement…
The agreement will settle all of the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and San Juan Southern Paiute water rights for the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River basin, the Gila River Basin (including Big Boquillas Ranch) and claims to groundwater in the Navajo Aquifer, the Coconino Aquifer and other alluvial aquifers.