Last month, the seven Upper and Lower Basin states failed to come up with new terms defining how the Colorado River is to be shared — after missing a federal deadline set by the Interior Department.
Now, water users from across the West are set to meet for an annual conference starting Tuesday. It’s organized by CRWUA — or the Colorado River Water Users Association.
Thirty federally recognized tribes are among those trekking to Las Vegas, including Amelia Flores, who is chairwoman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes — or CRIT — living along the border of California.
CRIT is Arizona’s largest and most senior Colorado River water rights holder.
Despite frequent meetings with and visits from federal officials housed at the Bureau of Reclamation and Interior Department, Flores suggests those agencies are scrambling to figure things out.
“Our hopes is to hear some tidbits, some inkling,” Flores told KJZZ, “how the tribes play a part in that. It’s going to be interesting to see what information is going to be passed down to us.”
A new timeline has been made for states to finalize an agreement by mid-February.
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Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren made his third annual state address in Shiprock on Tuesday, outlining his administration’s accomplishments amid ongoing efforts to remove him from office before his term expires this year. -
That pending land swap between the U.S. Forest Service and a multinational mining company would result in a six-decade underground copper project that is estimated to create a two-mile-wide crater, devouring an Apache holy site called Oak Flat. -
Tribes are still figuring out how to start and finish renewable energy projects amid the Trump administration freezing or eliminating federal dollars from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, which directed more than $720 million to Indian Country. -
Scientists, writers, artists and others with an interest in the Colorado River got together recently in Moab, Utah, for an event called Rivers of Change. -
As currently written, the proposed EPA rule would narrow the 1972 landmark law’s enforcement with estimates suggesting that 80% of the nation’s wetlands could be at risk.
