The Elephants in the Room

In the parlance of Western water, Pat Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) is sometimes referred to as the '800-pound gorilla'. If that's true, then Indian water rights can best be termed the 'elephant in the room'. If we were concerned with proper scale, 'herd of elephants in the room' would be the apt metaphor. 

Indian water rights are big this year. For starters, it is the centennial of the Winters Doctrine. Even USA Today had an article a few weeks ago about Indian tribes exercising their Winters (Federal reserved) water rights. When you factor in global warming and its possible deleterious effects on water availability, then "unexercised" Indian water rights loom large indeed. Literally, satisfying these rights would make Las Vegas' water needs a drop in the bucket.

And, if you think Pat Mulroy's presence at a gathering of Western water managers gives grown men and women the vapors, the notion of Indian water rights makes them contemplate immediate retirement to a Great Lakes state.

As I said in earlier post, what goes around comes around.

Matt Jenkins' feature article (the basis of this post) in the 17 March 2008 issue of the High Country News tracks the efforts of the Navajo Nation to get its fair share of Colorado River water.  Tribes were left out of the Colorado River Compact that bound seven Western states. But they were not forgotten.

Jenkins states:

The seven states’ negotiators acknowledged the Indians’ dormant power in one small way: They added the "wild Indian article" to the water Compact. The article - whose name came from then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the facilitator of the negotiations - reads: "Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes."

With those 20 words, the negotiators punted all their gnarly Indian problems sometime into the future. "The states have basically ignored that there are Native claims to the river," Fowler said. In the 86 years since the Compact was signed, the downstream cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas have boomed, while the Navajo have been left parked in a dusty time warp high on the Colorado Plateau.

The Navajo Nation occupies about 10% of the Colorado River basin (CRB). Tribal attorneys are now preparing their case for CRB water.

So how much CRB water are they entitled to? It could be as much as 800,000 acre-feet. Much of that water would have a priority date of 1868, which would move them ahead of others such as Las Vegas and the Central Arizona Project.

But Peter MacDonald, former tribal leader, says that the water the Navajo could claim extends beyond the boundaries of the current reservation to the land encompassed by the Four Sacred Mountains (see map), which extends the region from near Flagstaff, AZ, to the San Luis Valley, CO. When he was tribal chariman, MacDonald had his water people calculate the amount of water the tribe could claim. Based on the "practicably irrigable acreage" (PIA) standard, MacDonald's engineers calculated that for the expanded region, the claim could be as much  as 15 million acre-feet, the amount allocated to the seven CRB states. MacDonald also had his water people develop a Navajo analog to the Central Arizona Project. But that never gained traction, because MacDonald would not compromise with the Federal government (see today's aphorism below).

Jenkins goes into more detail, and describes some of the tribal infighting. It's a fascinating story, and it's only just beginning. Given the precarious water situation extant in the CRB, the prospect of another huge claim on the basin's water is almost too much to fathom.

It's definitely time for a "thinking about the unthinkable" scenario for the Southwest USA.

"The Navajos would rather have 100 percent of nothing than 50 percent of something."  -- saying in Western water circles

Comments

[WaterSource]

There is a new Source solution for the region, but only for a million acre feet per year. It will belong to whomever has the foresight to investigate, pursue and develop it. The Source is insulated from Indian claims. quagga mussels, delta smelt, "gorillas, elephants and environmental attack". There will be no interest in the new Source until a crisis occurs. WaterSource waterrdw@yahoo.com

[Michael]

So what, pray tell, is this 'Source'? Produced water?

Since you never tell us what it is, I suspect the 'Source' is just so much smoke and mirrors.