Bingaman reintroduces Navajo water bill

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Diné Bureau

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman introduced a package of bills Wednesday that includes measures he wrote to settle Navajo Nation water rights claims in the San Juan River Basin, construct a pipeline in eastern New Mexico and help water managers better plan for the future. The package could be voted on as soon as Sunday.

The Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects legislation, which reflects a 2005 agreement between the state of New Mexico and Navajo and which needs congressional approval, was introduced previously by Bingaman and Sen. Tom Udall.

It recognizes approximately 600,000 acre-feet per year of water to the Navajo Nation for agricultural, municipal, industrial, domestic and livestock watering purposes. It also authorizes federal funding for the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project and various water conservation projects in the basin.

Under the proposal, the federal government would contribute funding over about two decades to construct the pipeline and perform other activities to implement the agreement. The bill authorizes $870 million to construct the project, although some of that cost will be paid by the state of New Mexico and the communities served.

The measure also provides an assured source of funding to pay for the project by setting aside surplus revenues in the Reclamation Fund to pay for the Navajo settlement and future settlements. During congressional committee hearings last year, the Bureau of Reclamation spoke against using those funds.

“Enacting this legislation would bring an end to years of litigation over water rights in the Four Corners area, giving certainty to the Navajo Nation and water users in Gallup, Farmington and other communities,” Bingaman said.

“It is shameful that 70,000 people on the Navajo Nation, located in the wealthiest nation on earth, do not have easy access to water, one of the most basic necessities of life,” Udall said. “This legislation will help eliminate this injustice while resolving conflict over water rights and ensuring that the city of Gallup will also have better access to water.

After years of work on this legislation, I am proud to see it put on the path to passage in the Senate.”

The package also includes Bingaman’s Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System Authorization Act, which Udall also previously introduced and passed in the House.

The measure authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to spend up to $327 million to assist the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Authority in the construction of the pipeline. The water will come from the Ute Reservoir, which was built on the Canadian River in 1959 as a sustainable water supply for eastern New Mexico.

A few years after the reservoir was constructed, Congress authorized the study of a pipeline that would transport the water to eastern New Mexico communities that needed it.

But it was only in the past few years, with an increasing concern about declining and degrading groundwater resources in the area, that the affected New Mexico communities began in-depth planning for the pipeline.

Under the legislation introduced Monday in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the state and the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Authority, which represents communities in eastern New Mexico that will benefit from the pipeline, will contribute a total of 25 percent of the cost of construction. The Authority will be responsible for operating and maintaining the pipeline.

“We’ve studied this issue for years, and now we are ready to proceed with the construction of a pipeline to serve eastern New Mexico communities,” Bingaman said.