Tribal voices part of Colorado River discussion

Voices of Native Americans, long shunted to the side room, if acknowledged at all, are being heard more clearly in Colorado River discussions, as re ected in two recent water conferences in Colorado.

At the rst, a drought summit held in Denver, a panel that was devoted to the worsening imbalance between water supplies and demands included Lorelei Cloud, the vice chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Her presence was an overt acknowledgement by conference organizers that the Ute tribe, if a part of Colorado, is also a sovereign. at’s something new.

e conference was sponsored by the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the state’s preeminent water policy agency. Cloud recently became a board member, representing southwestern Colorado. She’s the rst Ute ever on the board.

Cloud lauded Colorado for being ahead of many other states in including native voices. “We’re making strides,” she said but added that work remains.

e next week, she was on a stage in Boulder, at the Getches-Wilkinson Center’s annual conference about the Colorado River. irteen of the 30 federally recognized tribes that hold water rights in the Colorado River Basin were present.

eir rights stem from a 1908 Supreme Court decision involving

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tribal lands in Montana. e high court agreed that when the U.S. government created reservations and expected tribes to live there, water su cient to the presumed agrarian ways was part of the deal.

e states were fully engaged.

“We need to be at the table, not just at a side table,” said one tribal representative at the Boulder conference.

south of Phoenix, pointed out that his tribe has undertaken the largest integration of solar panels over water canals in North American, a practice called aquavoltaics.

He worked hard for his whole career, climbed the ladder as he was taught to do, and nally landed in the role that he wanted most, the position he was born to have, he became the CEO of the company. Having experienced plenty of successes along the way, nothing compared to the surge of pride that Brian felt ll his head and heart the day the public announcement was made, Brian CEO.

Having nally reached what he

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Allen Best

is decision, called the Winters Doctrine, has enormous implications for the shrinking Colorado River. Tribes collectively hold 25% to even 30% of the water rights in basin. Not all claims have been adjudicated. Most tribal rights predate others. e Southern Ute rights, for example, date to 1868.

All predate the Colorado River Compact. Tribes were not invited to Santa Fe in 1922 to apportion the river’s waters among the seven basin states, though the compact does acknowledge federal obligations.

Now, with the Colorado River delivering an average 12.5 million acre-feet, far less than the 20-plus assumed by those who crafted the compact, with ows expected to decline further, we have hard decisions to make. Tribal voices are being integrated into the discussions. Not fast enough for some, but very di erent than just a few years ago, when the federal government merely “consulted” tribes in the 2019 drought plan.

Some tribes have been amenable to leasing their rights to cities and others. But will tribes with a few thousand members exert as much in uence as California with its giant farms and its huge cities? California maintains that its senior rights be respected in any agreements. Still unclear is what hewing to that principle means when it comes to tribes with their even more senior rights.

Also unclear is the practicality of fully integrating the 30 tribes, each with unique circumstances and perspectives, in discussions with the seven basin states and federal government about how to address the sharp limitations imposed by the river. What has changed is broad recognition that tribal voices must better be included. rough the Water and Tribes Initiative, the tribes themselves have insisted upon being heard.

Residual anger at being shunted aside remains. Also ample is a spirit of cooperation. Many representatives suggested their tribes o er creativity and innovations in the community of 40 million Colorado River water users that extends from the farms of northeastern Colorado to the metropolises of Southern California.

Stephen Roe Lewis, the governor of the Gila River Indian Community

Others suggested they o ered perspective. e Hopi have been in Arizona for more than 2,000 years. ey’ve experienced drought before, said tribal member Dale Sinquah. “Our ceremonies and prayers revolve around water,” he said. “ at is what Hopi can contribute, along with dialogue.”

Native Americans often talk of water as being sacred, but that does not mean roped-o , kept in closets. e Native understanding is di erent than the legalistic framework most of us use. ey see water as something to be used, yes, but not in the same lens as most of us, who view it more narrowly as a commodity. What that means in practice is hard to tease out. Peter Ortego, a non-native attorney representing the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe of Colorado, said he found it odd the session had not started with a prayer. “Maybe we should ask, `What should we do day to day to respect the spirituality of water?’”

He’s got a point. I’ve never asked that question, but I am very curious about the answer.

At BigPivots.com, Allen Best analyzes and reports on the energy and water transitions underway in Colorado and beyond.