{"id":33277,"date":"2023-06-23T15:57:41","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T21:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/supreme-court-ruling-complicates-navajo-nations-fight-for-more-water\/"},"modified":"2023-06-23T21:57:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T21:57:41","slug":"supreme-court-ruling-complicates-navajo-nations-fight-for-more-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/supreme-court-ruling-complicates-navajo-nations-fight-for-more-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court ruling complicates Navajo Nation\u2019s fight for more water"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Phillip
Phillip Yazzie waits for a water drum in the back of his pickup truck to be filled in Teesto, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation, on Feb. 11, 2021. The Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in a dispute involving water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. States that draw water from the river \u2013 Arizona, Nevada and Colorado \u2013 and water districts in California had urged the court to decide for them, and that's what the justices did in a 5-4 ruling. (Felicia Fonseca\/Associated Press file photo)<\/span>Felicia Fonseca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

SALT LAKE CITY \u2013 On some parts of the Navajo Nation, where roughly a third of the people lack reliable access to clean water, people have to drive for miles on red dirt roads to lug water home. Others rely on unregulated wells or water delivery trucks.<\/p>\n

Already facing some of the most severe water scarcity<\/a> in the drought-stricken Southwest, the tribe now has to deal with a Supreme Court ruling this week that will make securing water even harder for the 170,000 enrolled tribal members who live on its reservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the battle and the strategy moving ahead is going to be a lot more difficult,\u201d Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

The tribe argued that the \u201cpermanent home\u201d promised in treaties the U.S. government signed more than 150 years ago includes a right to some of the water<\/a> crossing the reservation. The question before the court was whether the federal government had to quantify the tribe\u2019s water needs and come up with a plan to meet them.<\/p>\n

Two decades after the Navajo Nation sued the federal government to force them to act, their frustrating, meandering journey through the federal courts ended with the 5-4 decision authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying an 1868 treaty<\/a> \u201ccontains no language imposing a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision is a win for states that rely on the Colorado River, which cascades down from the Rocky Mountains through southwestern U.S. deserts. So much water is siphoned off that it rarely reaches Mexico\u2019s Gulf of California anymore. The ruling maintains the status quo in already difficult negotiations<\/a> brokered by the Biden administration over how to share the river\u2019s shrinking flows.<\/p>\n

Arizona \u2013 joined by Nevada and Colorado \u2013 argued that requiring them to accommodate the Navajo Nation\u2019s water needs would upend future negotiations over water for 40 million people and a $15 billion-a-year agricultural industry that grows most of the nation\u2019s winter vegetables.<\/p>\n

But it leaves the tribe at a serious disadvantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do the Navajo go from here?\u201d Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the dissent. They \u201chave waited patiently for someone, anyone, to help them, only to be told (repeatedly) that they have been standing in the wrong line and must try another.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of the ruling, if the Navajo Nation wants access to water from the lower Colorado River, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Gorsuch found one \u201csilver lining,\u201d writing that the majority did agree that the Navajo Nation may be able to assert such a claim. \u201cAfter today, it is hard to see how this Court (or any court) could ever again fairly deny a request from the Navajo to intervene in litigation over the Colorado River,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

This case was just one of many legal challenges to agreements over water rights established more than a century ago. The Navajo Nation and other tribes were left out of a landmark 1922 treaty that divided the Colorado River between seven U.S. states, and have long protested that states treat them as an afterthought at a time when all the stakeholders face a future with less water and greater demand.<\/p>\n

The National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp said the justices helped the federal government escape its promises to tribes \u201cby stating that treaties only secure access to water, but do not require the United States to take any steps to protect or provide that water to our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh said Congress could still help the Navajo Nation. Congress has allocated billions to help tribes secure water rights and build infrastructure to reliably deliver clean water to their people.<\/p>\n

But Congress is unlikely to help the tribe, according to Grant Christensen, an Indian law expert at Stetson University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not enough water now,\u201d Christensen said. \u201cCongress isn\u2019t going to take further steps to go ahead and secure Indian water rights away from the neighboring states.\u201d<\/p>\n

And supplying water across the Navajo reservation is particularly challenging because of its arid environment and the great distances involved \u2013 it\u2019s the largest in the U.S. at 27,000 square-miles (71,000 square-kilometers) \u2013 an area larger than West Virginia.<\/p>\n

The Navajo Nation has already reached settlements for water<\/a> from the San Juan River in New Mexico and Utah.<\/p>\n

Now it will focus on settling water rights over a Colorado River tributary in Arizona while that case proceeds in court, Nygren said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a familiar position for tribes, said Heather Tanana, a University of Utah law professor and citizen of the Navajo Nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s contesting that Navajo Nation has those rights\u201d to water, she said. \u201cBut in order to actually make them a reality, they\u2019re on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this report. Phillis reported from St. Louis.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A
A sign marks Navajo Drive, as Sentinel Mesa, homes and other structures in Oljato-Monument Valley, Utah, on the Navajo Reservation, stand in the distance, on April 30, 2020. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster, File)<\/span>Carolyn Kaster<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"FILE
FILE \u2013 The Colorado River in the upper River Basin is pictured in Lees Ferry, Arizona, on May 29, 2021. The Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in a dispute involving water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. States that draw water from the river \u2013 Arizona, Nevada and Colorado \u2013 and water districts in California had urged the court to decide for them, and that's what the justices did in a 5-4 ruling. (AP Photo\/Ross D. Franklin, File)<\/span>Ross D. Franklin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"FILE
FILE \u2013 Raynelle Hoskie attaches a hose to a water pump to fill tanks in her truck outside a tribal office on the Navajo reservation in Tuba City, Arizona, on April 20, 2020. The Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in a dispute involving water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. States that draw water from the river \u2013 Arizona, Nevada and Colorado \u2013 and water districts in California had urged the court to decide for them, and that's what the justices did in a 5-4 ruling. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster, File)<\/span>Carolyn Kaster<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The battle and the strategy moving ahead is going to be a lot more difficult\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33277","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=33277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33277"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}