Navajo water rights settlement with Utah inching closer

SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Gary Herbert has set aside $2 million in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 for what would be the first installment of money that is part of a settlement agreement pending with the Navajo Nation over water rights.

The money is part of $8 million the state proposes to pay to help fund $154 million for water projects in the Utah section of the Navajo tribe. The rest would be paid by the federal government.

In the works since 2003 when Utah and the Navajo Nation executed a memorandum of agreement to pursue negotiations before litigation, the proposed settlement is a recognition by the state that the tribe has rights to an annual consumptive use of 81,500 acre feet of water. The water is part of Utah's unused allocation from the upper Colorado River system. 

The proposed settlement also recognizes the use of up to 314,851 acre feet of water per year as the long as the annual depletion limit is not exceeded.

Stanley Pollack, the tribe's attorney, said the authorization for the state's contribution to the settlement is just one step in a long process that will require Congressional approval of the settlement and authorization of the proposed drinking water projects. The settlement will also require approval from the Navajo tribal council.

He said to have such an agreement in place will help move the process along at the federal level — with an advantage to having the tribe and the state in harmony on the details.

"We know that the United States, when we go to Congress, will want to see a local cost share in the projects," Pollack said. "Rather than have the United States tell us what that will be, the state of Utah has been proactive in coming up with that share."

The Navajo tribe in Utah numbers about 6,400 people who have a 1.9 million-acre reservation in the extreme southeastern portion of the state.

Pollack, who works for the tribe and lives on the reservation, has been negotiating reserved water rights for tribal members in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

His experience, he says, has been different in Utah than in other states.

"Utah has a really good track record of sitting down and wanting to settle these things without a lot of protracted litigation. They have a much better long-term view of water rights than some of the states do — a more informed view."