Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral.com website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
At a ceremony at the tribe’s waterside resort in April, [Interior Secretary Deb] Haaland, Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed the agreement, which will enable the 4,300-member tribe to move forward with enacting lease agreements, river conservation and other strategies. Over the past two months, Arizona tribes have celebrated several victories in the effort to secure water rights and the resources to use the life-giving water at the heart of their communities and for tribes with the most senior water rights to have more direct control over those waters…
CRIT first pondered leasing some of its water 40 years ago, said the tribe’s former water attorney Margaret Vick. But despite having senior water rights dating back to 1865 when its reservation was established, the tribe was legally barred from leasing some of its Arizona-side allocation of 662,000 acre feet. The tribe also has rights to about 57,000 acre feet on the California side of its reservation…In May, the Tohono O’odham Nation received nearly $1.59 million for a new treatment plant to address rising arsenic levels in groundwater wells in Sells. The San Carlos Apache Tribe will replace wells impacted by E. coli contamination thanks to a $986,000 grant. Those two grants were part of more than $225 million allocation to improve water and wastewater infrastructure across Indian Country. The Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe signed onto the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement, which, if confirmed by Congress, will enable the three tribes to claim a share of Colorado River water.