The Colorado River District is leading a coalition in what would be a history-making purchase involving historic water rights that are pivotal to Colorado River flows and water uses in western Colorado.
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’s broad, historic responsibility to provide them with aid. In Navajo Nation vs. Arizona Dept. of the Interior, the tribe was seeking to sue the federal government to require it to assess the tribe’s water rights along the Colorado River and help to create a plan to develop them for the 170,000 tribal members who live there.
Management of the depleted Colorado River needs an overhaul, speakers at a University of Arizona-sponsored conference agreed. But at a conference called last week to observe the 100th anniversary of the interstate compact that divided river water rights among Western states, the speakers disagreed over whether the Colorado River Compact itself needs a major rework.
Alex Cardenas. J.B. Hamby. Jim Hanks. Javier Gonzalez. Norma Sierra Galindo.
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of them. But with the Colorado River in crisis, they’re arguably five of the most powerful people in the American West.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
