{"id":33096,"date":"2023-07-04T13:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-tribes-fear-effects-of-u-s-supreme-court-ruling-in-water-rights-case\/"},"modified":"2023-07-04T19:37:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T19:37:00","slug":"ute-tribes-fear-effects-of-u-s-supreme-court-ruling-in-water-rights-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-tribes-fear-effects-of-u-s-supreme-court-ruling-in-water-rights-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Ute tribes fear effects of U.S. Supreme Court ruling in water rights case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Water
Water from the Colorado River diverted through the Central Arizona Project fills an irrigation canal on Aug. 18, 2022, in Maricopa, Ariz. The Biden administration on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 released an environmental analysis of competing plans for how Western states and tribes reliant on the dwindling Colorado River should cut their use. (AP Photo\/Matt York, File)<\/span>Matt York<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado tribes are worried that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month against the Navajo Nation in a Colorado River water rights case may narrow the federal government\u2019s broad, historic responsibility to provide them with aid.<\/p>\n

In Navajo Nation v. Arizona Dept. of the Interior, the tribe was seeking to sue the federal government to require it to assess the tribe\u2019s water rights along the Colorado River and help to create a plan to develop them for the 170,000 tribal members who live there.<\/p>\n

Instead, in a 5-4 decision released June 22, the court ruled the federal government isn\u2019t responsible for such actions, saying the treaties between the U.S. and the tribe didn\u2019t explicitly require it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 1868 treaty did impose a number of specific duties on the United States, but the treaty said nothing about any affirmative duty for the United States to secure water,\u201d Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion.<\/p>\n

Tribal leaders say the decision is a step toward diminishing the overall responsibilities of the federal government outlined in the treaties. That could impact how much the U.S. government is required to help with tribal projects related to other natural resources and climate resiliency work, said Daniel Cordalis, tribal partnership manager for the Colorado River Sustainability Campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a permanent homeland for tribal members means now, it\u2019s pretty vague,\u201d said Cordalis, who is also a member of Navajo Nation. \u201cTribes might find it a lot harder to get the United States to help them and work with them on some of these projects, if they don\u2019t have to threaten the power of a trust claim behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Navajo Nation reservation is the largest in the U.S., spanning 16 million acres across parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah and bordering Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

A threat to treaties<\/div>\n

The decision from the Supreme Court is somewhat in conflict with how the Biden administration has handled other tribal relations, said Peter Ortego, general counsel for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like the federal government is respecting that trust responsibility and trying to do something positive,\u201d he said, \u201cand now the courts have said they don\u2019t have that trust responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opinion could change the way the federal government sees its responsibility to other tribes, Ortego said. The federal government recognizes 574 American Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be playing games with these things,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was a permanent situation, the nation was at war and now they\u2019re saying the treaties signed to get out of that war are not worth more than the paper and ink they\u2019re written on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaders of the Southern Ute Tribe said they would be working to enact legislation to ensure the trust responsibility is upheld.<\/p>\n

The opinion \u201cis reflective of this court\u2019s continued assault on the trust responsibility that the federal government owes to tribes,\u201d the Southern Ute Tribe wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

Tribes already felt their treaties weren\u2019t respected and the decision takes that a step further, Ortego said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens if the treaties go away?\u201d he said. \u201cIf (tribes) don\u2019t feel they have the protections of those treaties, what options do they feel like they have?\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u2018simple ask\u2019<\/div>\n

The case began in 2003 when the Navajo Nation sued the federal government, saying it had violated its trust agreement from an 1869 treaty to establish a \u201cpermanent home\u201d by not protecting their nation\u2019s water rights.<\/p>\n

That case bounced around lower courts for years until it ended up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was argued in March.<\/p>\n

Colorado joined Arizona, Nevada and parts of California in asking the court to rule against the Navajo Nation, arguing agreement with the tribe would undermine existing agreements for the Colorado River.<\/p>\n

If the Navajo Nation wants access to water from the lower Colorado River now, Congress must act or the tribe needs to ask the Supreme Court to reopen a prior case that allocated water between states, said attorney Rita McGuire, who represented Southwestern states that opposed the tribe, according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Barrett joined the majority opinion and Thomas also wrote a concurring opinion. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the dissenting opinion, which was signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Jackson.<\/p>\n

Gorsuch argued that the court was rejecting a request the Navajo Nation never made.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Navajo have a simple ask: They want the United States to identify the water rights it holds for them. And if the United States has misappropriated the Navajo\u2019s water rights, the Tribe asks it to formulate a plan to stop doing so prospectively,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The Navajo Nation can still conduct their own assessments of their water rights, but without the resources and help from the federal government.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaders say outcome weakens U.S. government obligation to keep promises made in treaties<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,28,1655,629,22,547,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-navajo-nation","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-us-supreme-court","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33096"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}