While Arizona, neighboring states, the federal government and Mexico are negotiating over a dwindling supply of water from the Colorado River, another key stakeholder is tribes. Thirty of them in all, trying to either ratify their rights or safeguard their allocations of the West’s most precious water resource.
Beyond being seen and heard in the room where water decisions are handled, tribes are also having to navigate unprecedented institutional shifts from the Biden administration back to President Donald Trump that, in turn, potentially hinder their sovereignty.
More than two-thirds of the Colorado River Basin tribes are from Arizona. They all need to negotiate with the U.S. to essentially get what they want. Unlike states, tribes were historically excluded from these dialogues, but lately their engagement in defining the future of the Colorado River has been celebrated.
“All of those tribes are in very different places,” said Scott Cameron, currently the top-ranking Interior Department official on Colorado River matters. “And there’s no one size fits all, and what’s going to work for one tribe is probably going to not work for most of the other 30.”
He reiterated his department’s commitment to tribal consultation this month during an annual water conference organized by the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“So we really need to have these conversations on a one-on-one basis,” added Cameron, who is the acting assistant secretary for Water and Science. “That having been said, trying to negotiate with 37 people in the room is a lot more complicated than negotiating with seven.”
So far, tribes seem fairly content with the Trump administration’s recent and frequent communication – a sentiment shared by Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community last month during an annual Tucson water conference at the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center.
“We’ve already made significant progress with the new administration, and we’re more optimistic than ever that they’re listening and seriously considering new proposals,” said Lewis in a pre-recorded video message, “that will allow us to accomplish two key objectives in our state: Shifting away the state from the reliance on CAP water rights to sustain existing and future settlements and developing new supplies from the Lower Colorado within our state with new storage.”
At the same time, the federal agency responsible for refereeing talks has also made notable cuts – gutting roughly 4% of all Interior staff – and potentially shaping its water priorities for years to come.
“I’ve heard on calls that about 25% of the workforce is now gone from Reclamation in general, and so just for water in the West, that’s significant,” said Cora Tso, a Navajo senior fellow researching tribal issues at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “Until we have that commissioner nominated, then we would kind of have a better sense of this new administration’s tone on how they’re seeing water in the West.”
When pressed to confirm how many cuts were made at the Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department repeatedly declined doing so, telling KJZZ it does “not comment on personnel matters.”
Last month, U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, sent a letter along with fellow Democratic chamber colleagues, asking the Interior's Acting Inspector General Caryl Brzymialkiewicz to “evaluate the extent to which workforce reductions at the Bureau of Reclamation prevent the agency from fulfilling its statutory mission,” prioritizing concerns over “inspecting dams and identifying threats to public safety.”
Reclamation is responsible for more than 450 dams across 17 western states.
Beyond the Bureau of Reclamation, the Secretary’s Indian Water Rights Office is home to 45 federal negotiating teams essentially bird-dogging all parties through complex agreements. This smaller office, housed at the same federal agency, has also faced severe staffing shortages.
Once more, the Interior Department would not disclose how many of those employees were lost telling KJZZ it’s “collaborating closely with the Office of Personnel Management to embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation.”
During an exit interview last year, President Joe Biden’s Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, expressed optimism for the agency’s future ahead of the transition back to Trump – despite ideological differences with the incoming administration.
“Of course, I will always hope for the best,” Haaland told KJZZ. “You know, the 65,000 career staff who were here, they wake up every day to serve the American people. They’re amazing public servants, so the work will absolutely continue.”
In all, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $320 million to fund the planning and construction of critical water infrastructure projects across Indian Country in consult with the Bureau of Reclamation. But it remains unclear how much of those federal dollars – if any – will be clawed back by Trump.
Uncertainty is still rippling from top to bottom, with Tso pointing out that the White House had yet to nominate a Reclamation commissioner – that was until Tuesday, when the Trump administration tapped Ted Cooke, who once managed the Central Arizona Project, to potentially lead the bureau. But in fairness, that’s a typical timeline. For context, Biden named Camille Touton as his nominee within 150 days, and Trump has also been in office for that long.
“They’re still building out the political roster at Interior quite a bit,” said Daniel Cordalis, who is Navajo and runs the Tribal Water Institute at the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund. “Tribes who know how to advocate and talk with their agency staff continue doing so, assuming that staff is still there.”
Settlements are hugely important legal frameworks for tribes in securing their water rights by basically turning paper claims into guaranteed acre-feet allocations – along with the funding mechanisms needed to do so.
Such agreements, largely bipartisan, can only be ratified by Congress.
“And of course, tribal waters are not the president’s priorities,” added Cordalis. “It’s not uncommon. You know, that being said, I think we have an Interior secretary who is sympathetic and supportive of tribes.”
During his confirmation hearing, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was hopeful he can deliver results for all along the Colorado River.
“I got some good understanding and good exposure to this,” said Burgum, testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in January, “but I think you can count on that we’re going to look for a collaborative solution that serves everyone.”
But even if Burgum is behind tribes, getting the GOP-controlled Congress onboard could still be challenging. Cordalis explained slashing federal dollars may have a trickle-down effect stalling Indian water settlements, adding that “Congress is very much on the president’s playbook about cutting costs, reducing the budget and doing things, requiring, for lack of a better word, offsets.”
The biggest offset of them all would be the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement for Navajos, Hopis and San Juan Southern Paiutes. It’s worth $5 billion, an expense that the federal government incurs.
“Where do you offset that and who’s going to do it?” asked Cordalis. “That’s the concern here, these settlements have big price tags. Everyone’s like, ‘Well, this is just too much for us to consider, because we are going to be not wanting to spend money.’”
While more costly water deals are likely to dam up, Cordalis believed Congress may still have the political willpower and an appetite to get cheaper agreements authorized “for some of the ones that seem doable.”
“So our hope is they can, piece by piece,” he elaborated. “Maybe we’ll be able to get a couple settlements across the line, which, still, it’s just all in hope right now.”
Tso is slightly more optimistic, thinking the Trump administration sees this settlement for three tribes in northeastern Arizona as an economic driver “for the most amount of acres and the largest populations of tribes in the country.”
“These settlements will continue to go through, but I don’t think the motivation for conservation will be as significant as previous administrations,” stated Tso, suggesting there’s “more of an emphasis” on the Navajo-Hopi-San Juan Southern Paiute deal as opposed to the Yavapai-Apache Nation’s $1 billion bill involving the Verde River.
“This idea of water investments looks different from administration to administration, but it’s just what industries,” she explained. “The Trump administration is prioritizing oil and gas and nuclear energy in the West, so it doesn’t seem like those water concerns are an issue for them.”
Today, a pair of settlements are still waiting to resolve outstanding water claims stemming from four Arizona tribes: Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, San Juan Southern Paiute and Yavapai-Apache Nation.
In all, 39 settlements – exceeding $8.5 billion – have been ratified since 1978.
During his first term, Trump ratified the most expensive deal to date – $1.9 billion – for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana. He also approved another major settlement for Navajos living in Utah valued at more than $210 million.
“That tells me, at least from the federal perspective, the first Trump administration understood the investment in Indian water,” said Tso, adding that all happened before Trump began focusing on so-called government efficiency. “The dynamic of just having all these different cuts and having this approach of DOGE now is completely different from what we saw.”
