Indianz.Com > News > KUNC: Gila River Indian Community charts own course when it comes to water supply
Gila River Indian Community rejects states’ plan for Colorado, works with feds
Monday, March 25, 2024
KUNC
The Gila River Indian Community said it does not support a plan backed by three states for managing the Colorado River’s shrinking water supply, and is instead working instead with federal officials to develop its own proposal for water sharing.
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said Wednesday (March 13) at a meeting of policy experts and water scientists in Tucson that his tribe would not go along with the plan unveiled a week earlier by the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada.
“This is not the time to be standing on the sidelines,” Lewis said. “We all have a responsibility to do what we can. And that’s why the community can’t support the current Lower Colorado River approach as it stands now.”
The tribe is among the most prominent of the 30 federally recognized tribes that use the Colorado, and has signed high-profile deals with the federal government in recent years to get big payments in exchange for water conservation. Those deals were celebrated by Arizona’s top water officials at the time.
But Wednesday’s announcement adds a new wrinkle to an already-complicated process.
Last week, the seven states that use the Colorado River unveiled competing plans for managing the river’s water. The Lower Basin states revealed one, and the Upper Basin states – Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico – revealed another.
The two plans reflect stark ideological differences between the two groups, marking the latest disagreement between rival camps that have argued over water management for decades.
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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