As negotiations proceed over the way forward for the essential Colorado River system, the 30 tribal nations that depend upon its water are demanding a seat on the negotiating desk — from which they’ve been excluded for a century.
Collectively, the tribal nations within the basin maintain senior rights to a couple of quarter of the river’s water. Few, nonetheless, can entry all of the water they personal due to lack of funding for infrastructure or ongoing authorized processes.
Their inaccessible water as a substitute flows downstream to different customers.
The tribes have sought higher inclusion and sway in decision-making on the Colorado River for many years. They’re as soon as once more demanding a proper function in choices about how water provide cuts must be made earlier than the present set of working pointers for the river expire on the finish of 2026. As flows shrink, the seven states within the basin dominate negotiations concerning the river, which supplies water for 40 million folks within the West.
Extra tribal involvement is going on — slowly — however tribal, state and federal leaders have stated far more work must be accomplished.
Tribes must be seen as equal gamers on the negotiating desk with state representatives and federal officers, stated Lorelei Cloud, the vice chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council and the primary tribal member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. She stated Native American views on the river’s future should be taken critically.
“We’re the primary inhabitants of this whole river,” she stated, noting her ancestral homeland included a big swath of the Colorado River basin.
A proper settlement signed in April between the Higher Colorado River Fee and the six tribes with land within the Higher Basin has sparked hope for additional inclusion. That fee is made up of representatives from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, in addition to a federal appointee.
Tribal, state and federal leaders have referred to as the settlement historic.
“I feel it’s value emphasizing that that is the primary and, to this point, the one formal mechanism for together with tribes in decision-making within the Colorado River basin,” stated Anne Citadel, the federal appointee to the Higher Colorado River Fee, throughout a fee assembly on June 26.
Peter Ortego, normal counsel for the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, stated in an interview that his tribe was grateful for the chance to take part extra formally within the Higher Colorado River Fee.
“We want a spot on the desk,” he stated.
A historical past of exclusion
The exclusion of the tribes dates again a century to the signing of the 1922 Colorado River Compact — the primary doc formally apportioning the river’s water among the many seven basin states and Mexico. No tribal representatives have been invited to the negotiations and the tribes are talked about solely in a single sentence: “Nothing on this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the US of America to Indian tribes.”
The tribes have been nonetheless sidelined in 2007, when the states and the federal authorities created the newest set of working pointers. The tribes personal most of the oldest and most senior rights on the river, which implies they should be fulfilled earlier than more moderen rights will be.
“And but they don’t have a seat on the desk with us,” New Mexico’s negotiator, Estevan Lopez, stated on the latest fee assembly.
Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s prime official on the river, has advocated for higher tribal inclusion and made defending tribal water rights one among her post-2026 negotiation priorities. The settlement between the tribes and the Higher Colorado River Fee was lengthy overdue, she stated through the assembly.
“We nonetheless have a lot work to do, on the federal authorities, as state governments, as tribal governments throughout the basin,” she stated.
The Higher Colorado River Fee settlement with the six Higher Basin tribes — the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Ute Indian Tribe — units a gathering between the teams not less than each two months.
Earlier than the settlement, there was no formal engagement between the Higher Colorado River Basin tribes and states. The 2 tribes in Colorado — the Southern Ute Indian and the Ute Mountain Ute — maintained relationships with state water leaders, Cloud stated. Mitchell, particularly, had made an effort to construct a relationship, she stated.
However it wasn’t till August 2022 that formal conversations started within the Higher Basin. The primary discussions have been troublesome, Cloud stated, however finally morphed into the memorandum of understanding, which is able to keep in place no matter tribal and state management adjustments.
“In 2024, you’d have thought that these conversations have been normalized between tribes and state representatives,” she stated. “That was unparalleled previous to August of 2022.”
Publish-2026 tribal objectives
Leaders from not less than six of the seven basin states agreed at a convention final month that extra tribal inclusion was essential to the method. (Wyoming’s consultant was absent.) A number of states have appointed tribal members to water management positions, together with Cloud’s place on the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The federal Bureau of Reclamation has additionally convened a collection of conferences open to all basin tribes and states.
“Tribal nations have labored actually laborious for a decade to be seen and be a part of the answer within the basin,” stated Celene Hawkins, Colorado River tribal partnerships program director at The Nature Conservancy.
The tribes, just like the states, have the chance to submit their proposals for the river to the Bureau of Reclamation, a number of state leaders stated. In the end, it’s the bureau’s duty to make sure the tribes have a say on the way forward for the river, JB Hamby, California’s negotiator, stated on the convention.
Nineteen of the tribes, together with the 2 in Colorado, in March despatched a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation outlining their objectives for the river after 2026. They set out three key rules: Defend tribal water rights. Create instruments for the use and leasing of tribal water rights. And create a everlasting, formal construction for tribal participation in Colorado River coverage and governance.
At minimal, the letter states, anytime the Bureau of Reclamation is legally obligated to seek the advice of with the basin states, the federal authorities must be required to seek the advice of with the tribes.
The Gila River Indian Neighborhood in Arizona submitted its personal operations proposal as a result of it didn’t agree with the plans from both the higher or decrease basins.
“That is the primary time that any tribe has been sufficiently concerned in a Colorado River negotiation course of to be able to current its personal various,” the tribe’s governor, Stephen Roe Lewis, wrote within the March 29 letter. He referred to as that “a milestone within the inclusion of tribes in a government-to-government course of that deeply impacts all tribes within the Basin.”
Every tribe is exclusive, with its personal particular water rights and desires, however they typically agree on not less than one precept, stated Ortego, the Ute Mountain Ute normal counsel.
“What the tribes are saying is that since we’re the senior water rights, our water must be protected,” he stated.
In the end, Cloud want to see every of the Higher Basin tribes have a proper place on the Higher Colorado River Fee, although that will take congressional approval.
“We hope that this memorandum of understanding goes to be long-lasting and that it reveals tribes and states can work collectively as a collective for a similar objective,” Cloud stated. “If six tribes and 4 states can agree, so can everybody else within the basin.”
Get extra Colorado information by signing up for our Mile Excessive Roundup e-mail publication.