Shiprock Chapter President Duane “Chili” Yazzie says his local government is invoking traditional Navajo, or Diné law to bring the tribal council to task for accountability in a proposed water settlement agreement. Photo courtesy Restoring Diné Self Governance
Local chapter sues Navajo Nation Council over Colorado River water deal with Utah
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News
Health & Environment Editor
www.nsweekly.com SHIPROCK, Navajo Nation –– A local chapter of the largest U.S. tribal government is suing the legislative branch in tribal court to cancel a vote favoring a water rights settlement with the state of Utah. “We ask the proposed water settlement be declared null and void,” said Shiprock Chapter President Duane “Chili” Yazzie. “We demand transparency,” Yazzie told the Native Sun News. Before the proposed Navajo Utah Water Rights Settlement Agreement could take effect, the Utah legislature and the U.S. Congress would have to sign off. The state’s lawmakers passed a resolution in 2015 supporting the settlement, but neither state nor federal legislators have introduced authorizing bills. Drafters of the settlement agreement envision setting up a Water Development Fund, requiring at least $190 million from the U.S. government to cover possible projects prepared by the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources. The action comes at a time when the other three states in the Four Corners area also are adjudicating – either by negotiation or lawsuits -- their shares of the Colorado River with the Navajo Nation, which overlaps not only Utah, but also Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. The Navajo Nation’s claims on the water take precedence over the state’s rights from almost every doctrine established in the history of Western U.S. water use, according to an independent expert opinion by William Douglas Back and Jeffery S. Taylor. Their widely accepted opinion was published as “Navajo Water Rights” in the Natural Resources Journal in 1980 when Back, a doctor of jurisprudence, was an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior and Taylor was an officer of the Navajo Land Administration of the Navajo Tribe. The Winters Doctrine is the most notable asset to tribes in defending their access. It dates to a 1908 federal Supreme Court decision stating that a non-Indian jurisdiction’s water rights established later than federal recognition of an Indian reservation are subordinate to the water rights of the reservation in question.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: Local chapter sues Navajo Nation Council over Colorado River water deal with Utah (Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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