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$900 million Navajo Nation water project pitched
for Four Corners
by Will Sands
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A concrete barrier separates
stagnant water from the free flowing waters of the Animas
River below the A-LP construction site Monday. A proposed
settlement between the State of New Mexico and the Navajo
Nation for a similar project that would siphon water
from the San Juan River was unveiled on Dec. 5. /Photo by
Todd Newcomer. |
A new Four Corners water project
that would dwarf Animas-La Plata in terms of finances and infrastructure
has been announced. A proposed settlement agreement between the
State of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation for the use of water
in the San Juan River Basin was unveiled last Friday. The proposal
is already drawing serious heat.
On Dec. 5, a 120-page proposed settlement, including a proposed
water-release schedule, court decree and congressional legislation,
was released to the public. The gist of the proposed agreement
is that the Navajo Nation would agree to limit its share of San
Juan River water to a whopping 322,000 acre-feet per year with
no future claims. Nearly $900 million in federal funding for infrastructure
would be given to the tribe in exchange for the certainty. By
comparison, current cost estimates for A-LP’s 120,000-acre-foot
reservoir and pumping plant are now pegged at $500 million.
The majority of the funding for the Navajo project would be put
to the construction of an elaborate pipeline that would siphon
water out of the San Juan River in the vicinity of Shiprock and
feed the eastern side of the reservation. As proposed, the pipeline
would supply water to as many as 250,000 people by the year 2040.
The proposed agreement also includes details of how water would
be delivered to the pipeline from Bureau of Reclamation water
projects including Navajo Reservoir and the Animas-La Plata Project.
New Mexico State Engineer John D’Antonio explained, “The
Navajo Nation is giving up any future claims to water by settling
for this amount that has been negotiated. They will also get some
much-needed capital improvement dollars.”
A lawsuit to settle Navajo claims to San Juan Basin water has
been in the courts since 1975. Negotiations to resolve the difference
were started in 1993, and a team of federal negotiators started
working on a solution approximately 15 months
ago.
Both the Navajo Nation and the State of New Mexico announced
that they are pleased with the result. Chairman of the Navajo
Nation Water Rights Commission Albert Hale commented, “Water
will bring life to our barren lands. The settlement agreement
opens a new chapter in the relationship between the Navajo Nation
and
the State of New Mexico.”
D’Antonio added, “This will lend certainty to the
water rights claims of the Navajo Nation, and it will lend certainty
to other water rights in the basin.”
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| A front-end loader works on excavating the
A-LP pumping station Monday. The proposed Navajo Nation water
project would be almost three times the size of A-LP, drawing
322,000 acre-feet of water a year from the already over-allocated
San Juan River in New Mexico./Photo by Todd Newcomer. |
National Sacrifice Area
However, numerous other parties, including long-time opponents
of the Animas-La Plata project, are taking a different view of
the proposed settlement. Steve Cone, the Citizens’ Progressive
Alliance’s A-LP coordinator, said the agreement would spell
more trouble for the future of the Four Corners area. Cone said
that among other things, the project would dewater the San Juan,
is a thinly veiled attempt to open the door to new Four Corners
power plants and would reverse efforts to aid endangered fish
in the river.
“I think this is just another demonstration that the Four
Corners area is being viewed as a national sacrifice area,”
Cone said. “One of the reasons we think this is being rushed
through is pressure from the power industry.”
Cone added that to date, the public has not been welcome to partake
in the process. He said that this was particularly true when the
federal negotiation team came on board in the fall of 2002.
“At the point in time when this settlement team became
involved, citizens tried to get into the process,” Cone
said. “We made a request back in October of last year, and
we were told that we would not be welcome and that proceedings
would be closed.”
Cone added that all attempts to get information about the process
have been ignored and that the prescribed policy for resolving
American Indian water rights claims has not been followed.
“We’re very concerned that the federal government
is not following a standing policy and is instead using an approach
that is fairly loose and tailored to whatever kind of special
situation they seem to find themselves in,” he said.
Michael Black, of A-LP opponent Taxpayers for the Animas, agreed
that the settlement process has been hidden from the public. “It’s
obviously been done in secret without any public comment,”
Black said. “It appears that they learned their lesson from
the Animas-La Plata project.”
Black also questioned where the 322,000 acre-feet of water would
come from, noting that water in the San Juan River is already
over-appropriated. He said that the Navajo Nation would be given
preference over many existing Northern New Mexico water users,
thus irrigators along the Animas River in New Mexico could suffer.
“If you give the Navajos water, it’s got to come
from somewhere,” Black said. “I suspect it will come
from the irrigators on the Animas in New Mexico.”
While the settlement agreement was reached behind closed doors,
a hearing is scheduled for next Monday, Dec. 15, in Farmington
to gauge public input. However,
Cone said that he views the meeting as little more than a formality.
Citing the 120-page settlement as well as associated documents,
Cone said, “That’s a lot of documentation to lay out
in front of the public and tell folks that they have 10 days to
digest it.”
Another meeting is scheduled for Jan. 5 in Shiprock.This in mind,
Cone also expressed concern that the public has only these two
New Mexico opportunities to comment on a giant project with impacts
on Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
Public comments will be accepted by the Navajo Nation Department
of Water Resources and the Interstate Stream Commission until
Jan. 15 of 2004. The Navajo Nation and State of New Mexico said
they would like the settlement agreement to be up for consideration
by Congress by March 1 of 2004.
More information on the proposal can be found online by going
to www.ose.state.nm.us
and clicking on “hot topics.”
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