More on Navajo water rights vs Aridzona

As blogged about recently Navajo water rights claims stand before the Supreme Court, on which it could rule later this month. And, it's just possible that, even if the feds, behind Arizona, win, the victory would be Pyrrhic. See here.

(Update, June 22: The Navajos lost on a 5-4 vote, as Gorsuch couldn't get the Umpire or the Drunk to join him and the three liberalish members.)

Update to the last point? This HCN/Pro Publica piece about Aridzona screwing over Indians in general on water rights begins by noting just how this water could be used, but can't currently be used. A new hospital on the Big Rez stands unused because it doesn't have a guaranteed adequate water supply. And, it's not all Colorado River Compact states, it's Aridzona. This:

The Navajo Nation has negotiated with all three states where it has land — Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — and has completed water settlements with two of them. “We’re partners in those states, New Mexico and Utah,” said Jason John, the director of the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, “but when it comes to Arizona, it seems like we have different agendas.”

Is the nickel version.

(Update 2, June 26: Pro Publica offers an update to its previous piece.)

It's horseshit, to be blunt and pun, that alfalfa grown by White people takes precedence over something like the Dilkon Medical Center.

That said, per the story, Aridzona doesn't do this just to Navajos. It's all tribes in the state. And, it is hardball:

The state — through its water department, courts and elected officials — has repeatedly used the negotiation process to try to force tribes to accept concessions unrelated to water, including a recent attempt to make the state’s approval or renewal of casino licenses contingent on water deals. In these negotiations, which often happen in secret, tribes also must agree to a state policy that precludes them from easily expanding their reservations. And hanging over the talks, should they fail, is an even worse option: navigating the state’s court system, where tribes have been mired in some of the longest-running cases in the country.

Hardball.

It's a spinoff of Aridzona being stubborn against California early on in the Colorado River Compact, as documented by Marc Reisner in "Cadillac Desert" and others.

Speaking of hardball? To expand on my blog post last month about the three-year temporary non-rescued of the Lower Colorado Basin? It's softball and a boondoggle. 

More here from Gary Wockner of Writers on the Range on how this deal essentially is a boondoggle. With the "bribery" angle in place (for 3 years, $1.2 billion of Inflationmonger Joe's Inflation Reduction Act), alfalfa farmers will dig in their heels in four years. And, it ignores dams in the pipeline on the river's Upper Basin.

His nutgraf is near the end:

What this deal does do is set the precedent that the American taxpayer will backfill any and every financial loss caused by a changing climate. It has been estimated that the Colorado River’s water generates $1.4 trillion in economic activity per year. As climate change further depletes the river, will the U.S. taxpayer always be on the hook?

Couldn't say it better.

Update: Again, lest one thing that this is just about Navajos, High Country News has a new piece about Aridzona hating Hopi water rights, too. And yet another, about the Chemehuevi's water, though that's from Californicating on the other side of the river, actually. Both these are also in conjunction with Pro Publica.

Aridzona still refuses to face water reality

A year ago, I blogged about the first water cuts the Bureau of Reclamation announced for the Lower Colorado River states of Arizona, Nevada and California — and on this first round, mainly Aridzona, somewhat Nevada and not really California. Above, a drying Lake Powell, surrounded by summer-angry redrock, sits behind Glen Canyon Dam. That was about a decade ago, and the "bathtub ring" both there and at Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam have only gotten worse since then.

At that time, the feds announced that Lake Mead had fallen below the level to trigger the first round of water usage cuts next year. Within the three Lower Basin states (Google, and/or click the Wiki link, if you don't understand the Colorado River Compact), for a variety of reasons, the cuts hit Aridzona much more than Nevada. They don't hit California at all, though the next round, if triggered, will hit all three states. 

Meanwhile? Early predictions for US winter weather said that drought would remain and that the lower half of the West will also have dry weather, and these have panned out. Those 2023 cuts WILL happen. BuRec all but said so last month. I blogged about that here.

(Update: BuRec has indeed now dropped what I called a "semi-hammer." But, it's not a full hammer, or even that close. The question is, here, should it have been a full hammer? Will Aridzona continue to be scofflaws, so to speak? Will not dropping a full hammer make their intransigence even worse as the clock ticks to the 2026 expiration of the Compact?)

The first cuts looked to hit ag first.

But, what about urban water? The Aridzona Lege, several years ago, required new residential developments to prove they had a 100-year sustainable water supply. But, the language is loophole-ridden and is as much Jell-O as the Paris climate accords (which were similarly deliberately made so by Dear Leader and Xi Jinping). But, what about water banking? Well, Nevada (I think) is claiming that it's OK in part due to water banking. But, what if, in reality, such an account is already overdrawn? This is not like the federal government budget deficit, where you ignore it, or print more simollians if you have to. There is no more water to "print."

In addition, as of a couple of years ago, at least, it seems Aridzona did not have any withdrawal structure for water banked from the CAP. Since some of that water was banked for the state of Nevada? Erm, see above! In addition, per this piece, water banking was started for two reasons: one, as is true with most things Aridzona and water, as a reaction to those damned water-greedy Californians. Second, it was foisted as an idea for interstate water-banking and resale, as in, "we'll give those water-greedy Californians water if they pay us enough." But, it's hard to do that one, too, if you don't have a good mechanism for withdrawing water from the bank. See above! (The Wiki link also has thumbnail information on Aridzona's history of water animosity toward California.)

 

Robert Glennon, the University of Arizona prof who wrote the Conversation piece, agrees with me that cities and developers likely aren't yet going to smell the coffee.

More proof? This piece from the New Yorker, about Rio Verde Foothills, which bills itself as "North Scottsdale." It's sad and disgusting and schadenfreude all three.

• People drilling 1,000-foot water wells — and hitting dry holes.
• Others, who have been getting water delivered to underground cisterns, getting cut off. The city of Phoenix cut off deliveries to New River in 2018. And Scottsdale is cutting off Rio Verde Foothills next year.
• Meanwhile, MOAR HOUSES are being built. One loophole in that 100-year requirement? Applies to developments of five or more houses. So, developers submit four-house systems, get them approved by county commission, and do the same two weeks later, lather, rinse, repeat.
• Some homeowners want to start a Domestic Water Improvement District. To others? That's GUMMINT! Might TAX US! So, they want to have an upgraded agreement with a private water hauler. One problem? Only a water district, not a private hauler, can buy "second tier" water.
• Meanwhile, MOAR HOUSES are being built. 

 

Per Ed Abbey's "growth for growth sake is the theology of the cancer cell"? On the other side of Phoenix, Maricopa, now an exurb of upper-middle-class white flight (Pinal County was about 55-45 Dem in the late 1990s, now 55-45 Republican) is 70,000 and mushrooming. Didn't even exist 20 years ago. 

 

==

 

For an excellent in-depth look at the long-term problem and possible "solutions" (which will NOT revert us back to pre-2000 status), and which take into account the full Law of the River, see this Science mag study. (Hell will freeze over or Ed Abbey will rise from the dead before that much in the way of cuts happens without heavy federal intervention, likely coupled with massive state-vs-state lawsuits, launched by the Aridzona whose obstructiveness put it behind the Colorado River 8-ball decades ago in the first place.)

The Saudis milk Arizona for all it's worth, but state woes were at least partially preventable

I hope Arizonans like growing alfalfa for Saudi Arabia even as their own towns and counties that aren't getting Central Arizona Project or other Colorado River moisture dry up. And cave in. No, literally, per that link. The silver lining, to the degree there is one? After enough of the state literally implodes enough from ground subsidence, maybe more of them will move back to Iowa, Illinois or Minnesota. You know, where the water is.

IMO, Obama, as part of the Great Recession bailout, should have bought out free and clear people in Phoenix and Vegas who were underwater (reverse pun recognized) on mortgages — but with a legally binding stipulation they didn't move back to anywhere in the Colorado River Basin for 20 years. And, since the bailout would ultimately benefit banks, they'd have to sign off on not "replacing" these people.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on teevee. But I'm sure this would have been doable, in one or another way, shape or form.

If banks squawked on the "no replacement homeowners," a real prez simply would have given cash equal to the base payment value of what was left on the mortgage (base payment, as in no interest portion) and then required the same deal out of these folks. In exchange, if the banks kept squawking, a real prez would have offered a wink and a nod to these migrating homeowners about what federal law, at least, would not do to them. If the banks squawked further, some FDIC audits might have been a wake-up call.

Unfortunately, Dear Leader, compromising the compromise away in advance, and putting Lil Timmy Geithner in charge of most financial elements, wasn't a real prez.

Who were the Earps?

In a good new book, we see that Wyatt Earp was neither saint nor thug, but a complex, ego-driven man at the heart of an ultimately explosive situation in Tombstone, Arizona.

The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral--And How It Changed the American West by Jeff Guinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a realistic interpretation of the "shootout at the O.K. Corral" (which didn't happen there), and the events and people leading up to it, and afterward.

Serious western history aficionados know that nobody involved here was a saint. That said, some recent revision has attempted to make Wyatt Earp into a thug, and he wasn't that either.

Guinn does a good job of showing that Earp, before Tombstone, rarely fired his gun, rather using the gun butt or barrel to control drovers in Dodge City and elsewhere.

As for the "showdown," he says that, while a variety of tensions had been building, it was Ike Clanton's alcohol-fueled bragging that was the trigger.

Beyond both the Earps and Clantons were GOP/Democrat party politics, cattle rustling vs. respectability, stage robbers vs. Wells Fargo and more.

Even some earlier histories of the fight have failed to catch the full complexity.

Guinn also shows how Earp family ego was behind events. A family that had moved across the Midwest, then the West, for multiple generations, yet generally failed to attain the level of recognition family patriarchs believed it deserved, was a major issue.




View all my reviews
Beyond the scope of the book, I can also add that Tombstone, Ariz., today is a HUGE tourist trap. Compare that to Lincoln, N.M., of Billy the Kid fame, a New Mexico state historical park where you're not being pricew-gouged around every O.K. Corral corner.

First Oregon, now Arizona: Religion no excuse for criminal behavior

Last week in Oregon, faith healing parents Timothy and Rebecca Wyland were found guilty of criminal neglect over failure to take their own daughter to a doctor.

The couple's daughter, Alayna, was born in December 2009 with a birthmark above her left eye that developed into abnormal growth of blood vessels, known as a hemangioma, that slowly engulfed her left eye and produced a goopy discharge. Despite the growth and accompanying loss of vision, the Wylands did not consult a doctor.

As the picture shows, this was clearly evident to the parents.

Now, New Age "guru" James Ray has been convicted of negligent homicide in the sweat lodge deaths of three people in New Age mecca Sedona, Ariz. He beat the rap on a more serious manslaughter charge, but could still get as much as 30 years in prison.

And he should, per this:

“You will have to get to a point to where you surrender and it’s O.K. to die,” Mr. Ray said in a recording during the ceremony that was played at the trial.

Unfortunately, the judge didn't remand Ray into immediate custody.

That said, next? A bunch of lawsuits against Ray. That may, though it's not likely, cut back on some of this.

Jaguar-nabber off the hook, almost scat-free

I'm surprised, but charges against Janay Brun in the case of the death of Arizona jaguar Macho B have been dropped.

(The dismissal happened) in return for her admission that she was involved in an attempt to capture jaguar Macho B without "authorization or permission."

Brun, a research technician, had already admitted placing female jaguar scat at the site where Macho B was captured, at the orders of Emil McCain, a prominent large-cat biologist.

At least something halfway close to justice seems to have been done; contrary to my earlier fears, the feds didn't shit on Brun. That said, it's said that Thorton Smith, whom I suspect of more than just a moderate cover-up, is immune from prosecution.

Friday Macho scatblogging

To be precise, this is Macho B scatblogging, as in the Arizona jaguar well-known to many environmentalists.

A federal judge has upheld the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's right to snare the jaguar, but did NOT dismiss charges against Janay Brun, the private research technician who has admitted using jaguar scat as "bait" at the site Macho B was snared.

I hope Brun doesn't get hung out to dry in court for being a whistle-blower. Or simply for not being a government employee.

Given that Emil McCain, a fellow employee of the private Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project, contracted by the state and federal agencies to help with jaguar snaring, pled guilty last year on this very case, that wouldn't surprise me.

But, given the history of this case so far, and especially her history within it, Brun very likely is being hung out to dry.

That's not to mention the hypocrisy of the jaguar being listed on the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government doing nothing to actually protect it, like restricting cattle grazing on the Mogollon Rim, creating protection areas, etc.

Once again, can you smell the sweet smell of hypocrisy?

Arizona lies like hell about wolves

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission is supporting a proposal by wingnuts from the GOP's U.S. House delegation to remove federal endangered species protections from both Mexican gray wolves in the Southwest and their northern Rocky Mountain cousins.

Why?

So Arizona can help protect them better, of course:

In a statement released Monday, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, which carries out game commission policies, said that if the wolf were delisted, the state would become more heavily involved in planning the species' future and would run wolf reintroduction in a "more affordable, efficient and effective manner."

Ahh, the old cost-benefit analysis lie.

Schadenfreude for Southwestern global warming wingnuts

And, I do loves me some schadenfreude on stuff like this.

Anway, what's the reason for my schadenglee?

Water and hydroelectric power supply concerns is likely to affect ratings on related future bonds. MAY, though. Currently - shock me - Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings don't do that. And they are huffy over the suggestion they should.

I'd love to see Orange County, or Riverside County, in California, or Maricopa County (Phoenix) in Arizona, or municipalities therein, pay an extra, ohhh, 200 basis points for some future bond issue.

Hispanic GOP not worried about AZ law?

Why? Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Sandoval says his kids don't look Hispanic, so he doesn't worry about them visiting Arizona.

Shame on Univision for being cowardly enough to not release the video of this.

David Dewhurst whines about being called a liar

Tough shit, Mr. Lying Texas Lieutenant Governor.

Of course, that's what you get for repeating something nutbar off the lips of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. As a bonus, your mask/claim to be the upscale, posh, gentler, conservative, aka Kay Bailey Hutchison with balls, has been rudely exposed as another lie.

(In all fairness, per PolitiFact, ABC effed up the kidnapping story a year ago. Brewer only rode on its coattails.)

Jan Brewer has a sun-baked Arizona crime rhetoric

Will Obama say "enough" to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's overheated rhetoric on illegal aliens and crime? The border is safer than much of urban America, overall:

The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.

That said, Austin isn't a border city. Anyway, Tucson's violent crime rate is not much higher than that of Phoenix? And, stereotypes of violent crime leaking from Nuevo Laredo to Laredo aside, it's "OK," too. All of those cities are much safer than Dallas, for example.

Is Obama playing immigration politics with Arizona?

It sure looks that way.

He's trying to get SCOTUS to overturn the state's theoretically powerful, but almost never enforced, law that lets the state yank business licenses of companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants.

That despite the fact it relies on an express Congressional 'loophole' from 1986 and was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

That all said, somebody should ask immigration law fearmonger Kris Kobach, who authored SB1710 for the Arizona Lege, why the state isn't enforcing it.

AZ Gov Brewer panders to racism (again)

The latest? Signing into a law a bill that targets ethnic studies in state public schools and school districts.

Arizona and NYT columnists

Tom Friedman, in "Narcos, No's and NAFTA" looks at what's happening south of the border, with the implication that soon enough, a rising Mexican middle class will alleviate immigration issues.

I think he's full of crap, because as Mexican oil production continues to decline, the Mexican government will have a lot less money to alleviate poverty, and I doubt the middle class will grow that fast or that much.

Meanwhile, Frank Rich sees the Arizona GOP's action on immigration as just the front lines of how Tea Partiers are radicalizing the GOP nationally on this issue. And, yes, it's fair to start saying the movement as a movement is racist, or quasi-racist, if it doesn't start reading racists out of the movement.

Hopi Indians pass TCB 1710

The Hopi Tribal Council, representing the people that has lived for thousands of years on the Colorado Plateau expanse of northeastern Arizona, in order to preserve the integrity of the Hopi people, has passed Tribal Council Bill 1710.

It reads, in part:

Dear other peoples inhabiting the region that the United States Government calls "Arizona":

For countless ages before you or your ancestors came here, our forefathers, the Hisatsinom wandered this area freely, and in peace and tolerance. We did not demand "proofs" from the occasional stranger that wandered in.

We did not demand "proofs" from the Navajo that now surround us, when they finished their journey here.

We did not demand "proofs" from the Spanish when they came from Mexico. And, we could not ask them to leave, when, by their force, they committed grave crimes against our people.

That said, later, other people with white skins, far more numerous, came. We did our best not to stigmatize them, though we could have done so.

To no avail.

And, their descendants, you the people who now claim to "govern" this land you call Arizona, go even further.

Many of our elderly still are not fluent in English. They do not have driver's licenses, utility bills or credit cards. If they were born before 1924, they were themselves not even given the chance to be considered American citizens at birth. And, when they were, we had to decline, in order to maintain our sovereignty. So, they could be mistaken for Hispanic "illegal aliens."

Therefore, we must respond to SB 1710.

As a sovereign nation under United States Government law, we forbid any officials of the government of the state of Arizona to come on our land.

Leave us alone.

That said, we recognize that we are, ourselves, a fiction created to satisfy certain demands of the United States Government. Real discussion and consensus, about which we cannot inform you further, is done in our kivas and other locations on a village-by-village basis.

We can say that there is true consensus on this bill, though, and that it is not the consensus of the "Hopi Nation" but of the villages of the Hopi people.

To Anglos not knowing the traditions of governance, leadership and consensus within the Hopi people, you are referred here.

Dear Arizona: Here's the illegal immigrant truth

First, let me say that, for various reasons, I want the border properly enforced. But, I don't want that enforcement based on lies and racism.

Unfortunately, as Steve Chapman documents in great back-to-back columns, that's what's happening.

First, the law, and SCOTUS rulings, allow cops to take the initiative in making random contacts with people on the street. Well, that would count as a "lawful contact" in the Arizona law, Chapman notes. See the potential for police abuse?

In an earlier column, then, Chapman debunks the myth of the "criminal illegal alien," among other things. He notes the low crime rate in El Paso, for example, or notes illegals are less likely to commit crimes than Native Americans. (Of course, some of that is a different matter entirely.

Hey, AZ: Enforce the immigration laws you already have

Effing wingnut hypocrites. Arizona has a tough law - tough with employer fines and sanctions - already on the books, that it doesn't enforce, contra to "bleeding heart old Europe," which also has such laws and enforces them.

Arizona's latest sport?

Is it time for the Minuteman Biathlon?

Combine last Friday's signing into law of the stringent new immigration bill with Gov. Brewer signing into law the permitless concealed handgun bill the week before that, and add in Team Obama deferring to local states' laws on guns in national parks, and you get ...

The Minuteman Biathalon!

Minutemen see how many beers they can drink while chasing alleged immigrants through Saguaro National Park while slaloming around saguaros.

Ixnay on Grand Canyon, Arizona vacation trips

Now that Arizona will be allowing unpermitted carrying of concealed handguns, with Gov. Brewer signing a bill into law, I doubt I'll be vacationing there in the future.

Combine this bill with the cave-in of the Obama Administration on guns in national parks, and the result? Theoretically, people can now take concealed handguns, unpermitted, to Grand Canyon or Saguaro national parks, so I'll remind myself to to scratch visiting National Parks in Arizona off my to-do list.

Remind me to scratch Arizona off my list of states in which to seek jobs, as well.

Thanks, Arizona. And, thanks, Obama Administration.