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.

And, another ignorant woke fail by High Country News

The magazine, in talking about what a name means behind Western place names (and going into colonialism behind that, natch) asks a Navajo for the native name of the San Francisco Peaks.

And, never asks a Hopi for THEIR name for the peaks. Nor even entertains that perhaps still today, and definitely hundreds of years ago, the Hopi likely would have seen the Navajo as colonizers.

I commented on their Facebook page, but once again, it will do nothing.

The only time HCN has responded to me was when it had a clear factual error on logistics hubs west of the Mississippi and that was to blame the Salt Lake Trib as originator of the story and saying it would make a correction if and when the SLT would. (I provided them, from my years in Dallas, the clear evidence they were wrong.)

They did and said nothing about the atrocity called a Melanin Base Camp story. They labeled it "opinion" online, something they'd basically never done up to that point in print, probably because they knew the "opinion" was based on factually incorrect information and even at least one outright lie. That was when HCN put the "woke" key in the ignition switch for good.

And, I still won't resubscribe, HCN.

Good news/bad news in Four Corners

Good news? The Navajo Tribe preliminarily keeps 1,000 jobs for what is about as close as you can get to a Third World country in the United States.

Bad news? It does that by extending for 30 years the lifespan of the single largest nitrogen oxides emitter in the United States — the Four Corners Power Plant.

The good news? The lease was upped from $1.5M a year to $7M a year.

The bad news? Nothing in the contract about improved scrubbers or other environmental actions.

Now, the tribe has its own EPA, and says that any changes in federal standards on either NOx or SO2 will be incorporated into its standards. But, with Team Obama making nice to big business, is there any guarantee the U.S. EPA will keep its bureaucratic nose to the grindstone? Stay tuned.

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.

New Mexicans can breathe easier

The Environmental Protection Agency has pulled the plug on the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired electric plant.

The EPS found Desert Rock’s would-be operators had rushed the process and didn’t include integrated gasification combined cycle generation as part of a review of best policies.

Flip side is that the Navajo Nation is upset at Anglos, feeling it didn’t get a square deal. And, rightly so, on one level. But, on the other hand, where was “hozho” and the “We Walk in Beauty” from the tribe from the get-go? (Said as someone who grew up in Gallup.)

Will Obama 'push' on Arizona?

Would be huge field-expander and is possible

With one poll now showing John McCain's home state of Arizona in a statistical dead heat, will Obama be tempted to put some effort in here?

The Las Vegas TV market blankets northwestern Arizona, so Obama's already been getting some airplay. New Mexico looks safe enough that, on the fly, Obama could move campaign staff. And, staffers working in traditionally Hispanic and American Indian areas could pick up on the fly.

And, the latest poll numbers indicate Obama can safely transition N.M. staff, with a 17-point lead.

The key to me (as someone who grew up in the Four Corners) would be a GOTV effort on the Big Rez. Obama surely has a similar effort already set up in New Mexico's portion of the Navajo Reservation.

I think it's doable, if Obama wants to take a small but reasonable roll of the dice. And, even if not an official eff-you action, it would definitely shiv McCain at the last minute.

Big Bill Richardson’s dirty green pockets?

It looks like New Mexico’s governor and former presidential candidate isn’t quite such an environmentalist. Or, at least, that is the belief of someone in the Four Corners with a few dollars to blow on a billboard.

In the picture (click to enlarge), PNM is Public Service Company of New Mexico. The San Juan Generating Station is a coal-fired electric plant in the Four Corners area of the state which has seriously dirtied the skies of the state in it’s 30-plus years of history. The Four Corners Power Plant, built way back in 1963 and operated by PNM and Arizona Public Service, with Southern California Edison part owner of later units. was part of the 1950s deal that flooded Glen Canyon with Lake Powell in exchange for not flooding Dinosaur National Monument. A third coal-fired plant, Desert Rock Energy Project, is in the middle of Environmental Protection Agency pre-building review.

Also in the picture, BHP is BHP Billiton, the coal-mining giant that feeds the PNM maw.

The billboard is at the intersection of U.S. 64 and the road to the San Juan plant, just west of Farmington, N.M.

Ironically, or not so ironically for some of us who grew up in the Four Corners and near the Big Rez/Dinetah, the Desert Rock plant is being built under the auspices of Navajo tribe, through its Dine Power Authority. So much for claims of hozho and the Beauty Walk, eh?

Sithe Global is the builder of the alleged clean somewhat-less-dirty coal-fired plant. The reason it wants to build on the rez? No state environmental oversight.

At the same time, as that is about as close as you will get to a “Third World” country in the United States, many Navajos want the money from the plant.

As for Desert Rock’s customers, or potential ones, PNM denies it will buy electricity from Desert Rock, but a lot of people are skeptical. And, Big Bill is allegedly firmly opposed to Desert Rock (he has had a good record on oil-and-gas related environmental issues), but people are skeptical about that, too.

Read Desert Rock Blog, written by Navajos from Burnham, N.M., near ground zero, for much more.

How serious is this? After the new plant, in current design, is built, the Four Corners area, the heart of the pristine Colorado Plateau, likely will be an EPA non-attainment area.

Bill, if you are in fact opposing Desert Rock, great. But, crack down on San Uuan, and do what you can on Four Corners.

What it’s like to be a Navajo – and how water rights could change that

Unemployment officially at 50 percent and possibly 67 percent. Per-capita income at $8,000 a year. Driving as much as 40-50 miles off the Big Rez to get water in Gallup. Living as close as you can to “Third World” existence here in the United States.

That’s why Navajos want their cut of Colorado River water.

But, will they? The 1922 Colorado River Compact only made allowance for the seven states of the river basin. No Navajos, or other Indian tribes, need apply. But, the Supreme Court’s Winters decision, in another case, gave Indian tribes the right to retroactively claim water rights. Given that Navajos live bordering both a long stretch of the Colorado and most of its third largest tributary, the San Juan River, they’re in a position to make some claims. And, the Navajos’ eligibility for those rights go back to the founding of their reservation in 1868, before most of the Colorado River Basin was settled and when only two of the current seven basin states were established as such.

Plus, the compact itself says:

“Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes.”

The Navajo, like other tribes, can either sue for their rights, or negotiate compacts with various states, pending Congressional approval. The Navajos have already started down the latter path:

That’s the path that the Navajo Nation has taken in New Mexico. In 2004, the tribe and the state announced a settlement agreement that would award the Navajo 326,000 acre-feet of water from the San Juan River, a major tributary of the Colorado. (An acre-foot is enough for about two families in Phoenix or Las Vegas for a year.) The settlement also authorizes more than $800 million in federal and state money to build a pipeline that will take the water to the east side of the reservation and to the city of Gallup. The Navajo Nation is now seeking congressional approval of the deal, the tribe’s first step toward asserting its rightful claims on the Colorado.

Stanley Pollack, an assistant attorney general for the Navajo Nation’s Department of Justice, says the Navajos could claim as much in Arizona, plus 100,000 acre-feet more in Utah. Out of the 17.5 million acre-feet the compact claimed the river produced, or the 15 million that is a more realistic yet still quite optimistic number, 800,000 acre-feet is huge.

Let’s put it this way. It’s half again the water rights of the city of Las Vegas. And, going by age, the Central Arizona Project is the last in line.

But, Pollack is a bilagaana — a white man — and so, distrusted by many Navajos. With Arizona pushing back against Navajo claims, and Pollack very much a pragmatist, he’s even been accused of creating a water rights holocaust against the Navajos.

And, that problems stems back to legendary, and ultimately criminal, former Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter McDonald. McDonald tried to get a Navajo water rights claim based on their current reservations, but “Dinetah” — the Navajo claim to all the land inside their four holy mountains. Problems with that include not only that the federal and state governments wouldn’t recognize that, but McDonald and other Navajos were ignoring the Hopi, Utes, Zuni, Jicarilla Apache and the 19 Indian pueblos on the Rio Grande who lived in the area, as the High Country News article notes.

But the dreams went up in smoke with Peter Mac’s arraignment on corruption charges, for which he was eventually convicted.

But, the idea still holds sway in many Navajo minds. And, Jack Utter, a bilagaana conspiracy theorist who also works for the tribe, is fueling the anger against Pollack.

Anyway, who knows how this will turn out. As far as intra-Navajo scrums, the HCN story quotes an old aphorism:

The Navajos would rather have 100 percent of nothing than 50 percent of something.

Growing up in Gallup, I can attest to this having some degree of truth.

And, in this case, the Peter McDonald will-o’-the-wisp could be 100 percent of nothing for decades.

Or, with global warming and a drought of nearly a decade and counting tightening its grip on the Colorado Plateau, the Navajos could be pragmatic while still sitting in a large driver’s seat.

Anyway, read the full, in-depth story. This is why I subscribe to High Country News.