This week, the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund hosted its biennial tribal water symposium in partnership with the Western States Water Council. It's been a tradition since 1991, but this year's daylong gathering was virtual.
The online forum brought together tribal, state and federal stakeholders to focus on Indian water settlements – past and present – and the negotiations needed for them to be ratified by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Top-ranking Interior Department officials took time to reassure tribes that the Trump administration is behind them – despite recent staffing cuts and Congress clawing back federal dollars.
“We see some of my activities in Arizona slowed,” said Sarah LeFlore, acting director of the Secretary’s Indian Water Rights Office. “That, of course, is in part because of the limitations on using CAP water. And meanwhile, settlements in New Mexico really picked up.”
So far, the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act is the only bill from the Grand Canyon State to be reintroduced before Congress this session. The roughly $5 billion deal would resolve water claims for the Navajo Nation, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes.
The federal agency also encouraged tribes to come up with “very creative” solutions citing funding shortfalls, according to Kathy Falen-Budd, advisor to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
“Money is tight everywhere,” admitted Falen-Budd. “Interior doesn’t print the money, but when you look at Congress, the Congress now is getting much more stingy about just funding things into oblivion.”
As for the Colorado River and its ongoing negotiations, she warned that consensus is needed before 2026. The seven Basin states and 30 federally recognized tribes that lay claim to the river have until Oct. 1 of next year.
Otherwise, Interior will be forced to step in.
“We will if we have to, if we can’t get people to come to a settlement and agree. That settlement needs to include the tribes,” added Budd-Falen. “But if the interim guidelines expire, then Reclamation gets to run the river. And I’m telling you, you do not want a bunch of bureaucrats from Washington, D.C., running the Colorado.”
President Donald Trump recently tapped former CAP general manager Ted Cooke to helm the Bureau of Reclamation — pending Senate approval. Agency-wide layoffs reportedly cut at least a fourth of all Reclamation staff.
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