Tribes: We're 'left in the dark' about Colorado River negotiations

Fourteen tribal governments, including eight in Arizona, say federal officials have left them out of ongoing negotiations over future curbs of water use in the Colorado River Basin.

“Basin tribes are largely in the dark about what is being discussed or whether a plan is beginning to coalesce” to approve major water use reductions in the basin starting in 2023, they said in a letter to a top Interior Department official.

The July 22 letter came as representatives of the basin’s seven states, and Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, were well into their second month of private talks about how to meet a bureau directive to reduce water use in the basin by 14% to 28%. If the states can’t produce an acceptable plan by mid-August, Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton has threatened to impose a solution on them.

The tribes’ letter said, “There are only a few weeks left to develop this plan in time to meet the deadline Commissioner Touton set. Yet there has been no meaningful discussion with basin tribes about what the implications of this plan are likely to be or what unilateral action(s) the department is contemplating.

“We should not have to remind you — but we will again — that as our trustee, you must protect our rights, our assets, and people in addition to any action you take on behalf of the system,” the tribal leaders wrote to Tanya Trujillo, assistant Interior secretary for water and science.

“The volume of water that the department is asking to be voluntarily reduced by water users is massive and will undoubtedly impact all or some of the Basin Tribes’ water rights,” the letter said.

A Bureau of Reclamation spokeswoman said the bureau will respond to the tribes’ letter directly to them in writing.

“We don’t respond to correspondence in the media,” said Becki Bryant, of the bureau’s Salt Lake City-based, Upper Colorado River Basin office. “We try to keep it between the appropriate groups.”

In previous correspondence with Interior, tribal leaders have noted that tribes hold water rights to approximately 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water. That’s about 25% of the river’s average annual flow of barely 12 million acre-feet a year since the West’s current arid spell started in 2000.

“This percentage will only increase as climate change continues to diminish overall runoff amounts and reduces the amount of water available to lower priority users,” 20 tribes wrote to Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland in November 2021.

The Gila River Indian Community in Sacaton, which controls the biggest single share in Arizona of Central Arizona Project water from the Colorado River, was among the eight Arizona tribes that signed the new letter.

Also signing were the Ak-Chin Indian Community in Maricopa, the San Carlos Apache Tribe in central Arizona, the Hopi Tribe in northeastern Arizona, the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Whiteriver, the Tonto Apache tribe in Payson and the Fort Yuma Quechan tribe in the Yuma area.

Arizona tribes not signing the letter included the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui tribes in Southern Arizona; and the Colorado River Indian Tribe in Parker, which owns the largest share of Colorado River water of any Arizona tribe.

“What is being discussed behind closed doors among the United States and the basin states will likely have a direct impact on basin tribes’ water rights and other resources and we expect and demand that you protect our interests,” the tribal letter said.

Water agencies in the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada involved in the current negotiations generally declined to comment on the letter.

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The Arizona Department of Water Resources “has no comment on this,” spokeswoman Shauna Evans said Tuesday.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, a key negotiator, noted that the tribes sent the letter to the Interior Department, “so we are not in a position to provide any comment,” spokesman Bronson Mack said Monday. “I think that needs to be answered by (Interior) or the Bureau of Reclamation. I’m not trying to deflect here, but that’s really a matter for the feds.”

Another key player, Southern California’s six-county Metropolitan Water District, noted that, “Metropolitan does not set up meetings related to the ongoing Colorado River discussions, nor decides who is invited. Those decisions are determined by the federal government and representatives of the seven basin states,” spokeswoman Rebecca Kimitch said Monday.

Officials of the Colorado River Board of California, which represents that state at the talks, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Not the first complaint

This isn’t the first time tribal representatives have complained about being left out of discussions concerning the river’s future.

In March 2016, Stephen Roe Lewis, chairman of the Gila River Indian Community, publicly criticized state and federal officials for leaving tribes out of the seven-state talks looking for ways to save water in the basin.

“It is a glaring misstep that needs to be corrected,” Lewis told a White House water summit. “We want to be at the table. At our hearts, we’re stewards of the land. When we start talking about innovation, we have very innovative solutions to water management.”

Arizona’s water chief, Tom Buschatzke, replied at the time that he had discussed the ongoing negotiations with the Gila River tribe but that it would be impractical to expand participation in the talks.

“I think you can understand that probably every water user in the state would want to be in that room, and that is not possible,” said Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

The Gila River community later became a major participant in in-state talks that led to the 2019 Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. As part of that plan, the tribe gave up more water to prop up Lake Mead than any other Arizona water user.

And in their November 2021 letter to Haaland, the 20 tribes asked to be involved on two fronts. One involved efforts by the bureau and basin states to adapt the 2019 drought plan to the river’s “existing and emerging” hydrologic conditions, which have worsened in the past three years. The second involved the still-unstarted negotiations that will lead to a revision of the 2007 multistate guidelines for operating the Colorado’s reservoirs, including Lakes Mead and Powell.

In the tribes’ most recent, July 22 letter, they said they appreciated Haaland’s followup meeting with them in March in Albuquerque in response to the earlier letter. They were encouraged by Interior’s commitments there to support tribal inclusion in development of policies and rules governing the river, the letter said.

They also noted that in late June, Interior wrote up a Federal Register notice committing to “engage and consult with basin tribes in a meaningful and transparent matter” during the upcoming process under federal environmental laws to develop new guidelines to manage the reservoirs.

But since the tribal governments believe the current seven-state negotiations are one of these processes, “we are concerned that basin tribes are not being kept appropriately informed of developments there. Government-to-government consultation must, therefore, take place as soon as possible,” they wrote.