The commission that created the 1922 Colorado River Compact knew that Mexico, the Navajo and other tribes had rights to the river, but when it divvied up the presumed 15 million acre-feet annual flow, it didn't define the claims....Still no mention of Indian tribes, even though an 1850 treaty with the Navajo Nation, reinforced by a 1908 Supreme Court ruling, guaranteed water rights necessary for a permanent homeland Full Story »
Posted by Glenn LaBauve
Interesting introduction to the Navajo Nation's portion of the broader issue of water rights on the Colorado River. Written primarily for the Salt Lake audience, the piece may well provide sufficient context to understand the implications of the article--but anyone unacquainted with water rights in the desert southwest will need to read the related articles in the series to get a comprehensive picture of the problem.
Those unfamiliar with the Colorado Plateau, the River and the desert southwest will be hard-pressed to understand just how critical this issue is. The Colorado River runs 1,450 miles from the western Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, draining roughly 242,000 square miles of land, including Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California. The river is the major source of residential and commercial water supplies, irrigation and hydropower in the ... More »
Political science professor Dan McCool, who heads the University of Utah’s American West Center and has written books about Indian water rights, praises Pollack. ... More »
Water is the lifeblood of population and industry, and this could affect people all over the western US.
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