Water bill flows through

Water drips from the spout of the Gallup Water Station Thursday. The proposed new Gallup-Navajo Pipeline would eliminate the need for many Navajo Nation residents to haul water from Gallup. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The U.S. Senate approved legislation Thursday introduced by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., that includes a bill to settle the Navajo Nation’s water rights claims to the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico, bringing the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project much closer to reality.

The legislation passed the Senate 73-21, but still needs approval from the House of Representatives before it can be sent to the president.

Navajo water rights attorney Stanley Pollack said Thursday that he expects the House to approve Bingaman’s legislation, which includes the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects. The bill would provide approximately 600,000 acre-feet per year of water for Navajo to use for agricultural, municipal, industrial, domestic and livestock watering purposes, as well as federal funding for the Navajo-Gallup project.

“This settlement will provide clean drinking water supplies to the Navajo Nation. But it also gives certainty to water users in Gallup, Farmington and the agricultural community,” Bingaman said.

Sen. Tom Udall, who helped introduce the legislation in the past, said, “It is an outrage that 70,000 people on the Navajo Nation, located in the wealthiest nation on earth, do not have easy access to one of the most basic necessities of life — water. Today, after years of work on this bill, I am glad to say that we are one step closer to eliminating this injustice.”

Pollack said there are a series of conditions in the legislation “and if those conditions aren’t met, the Navajo Nation can pull out of the settlement.” The legislation authorizes the secretary of the Interior to execute the settlement agreement and to execute the Navajo Dam water supply contract for the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project no later than 2010.

“Obviously we’re hoping it happens much more quickly.

The next step after that is really a big one, and that is getting the decree court in Aztec, the one that has jurisdiction over the general stream adjudication, to approve the partial final settlement decree.”

The final deadline for construction of the pipeline is Dec. 31, 2024, Pollack said. “What we’re hoping for is that if we can identify appropriate sources of funding, that the deadlines can be pushed up. It’s a long road, but this is a big step in the process.”

George Hardeen, spokesman for the Office of the President/Vice President of Navajo, said they are happy to see the bill moving. “The Navajo people have been waiting for two decades for action on the pipeline and this legislation. We’re very thankful.”

President Joe Shirley Jr. delivered a radio address expressing his thanks to Sens. Bingaman and Udall, as well as to Pollack and Bitah Baker of the Department of Justice and Dr. John Leeper of Water Resources, “the shepherds of this legislation,” Hardeen said. “They deserve a tremendous amount of credit.”

Gallup Mayor Harry Mendoza said that even if the bill receives congressional approval, “It’ll probably take a decade before the project is completed. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Though it was expected that Gallup could be facing a water emergency in less than a decade, Mendoza said water conservation measures put in place over the last few years have placed the city in good position. “We’re not in an emergency mode yet. We have the G-22 wells that we drilled last year. When all the hearings are done in Santa Fe, they’ll be in operation within the next couple years.”

Navajo Council Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan said the settlement will greatly assist those living in the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation. “The bill proposes the building of vitally needed water infrastructure that will greatly help many Navajo families in that area of the Navajo Nation.

Potable water is needed. Water is life and water is necessary in order to begin building communities for our people,” he said.

One community in need of safe drinking water is Smith Lake Chapter. “We are hurting for water because there’s a lot of uranium in the water that we have right now out here at Smith Lake. A lot of the community don’t drink that water,” said Rachel Billy, chapter coordinator.

There are approximately 586 registered voters at the chapter. “Everybody hauls water. They go out to Crownpoint, or down to Thoreau or to Gallup to haul their own water. When it snows or when it’s muddy, it’s hard for them to get out. Even at the chapter house we don’t drink the water. We buy cases of water and we use that to make coffee.” They use the uranium-contaminated water for cleaning, she said.

Smith Lake is not the only community with water problems. At Two Grey Hills there are problems with arsenic and chlorine, according to Linda Johnson, chapter coordinator. “It’s not just our community. It’s Todalena, Two Grey Hills, Sheep Springs and Newcomb.

Environmental Health comes out and does the water testing, and so does the Navajo Nation’s Water Resources.

“I was informed that they had a high chlorine level in the water and they were trying to dilute that by running another water line that’s going to hook up to the main one that’s going through the community right now. They said it contained high levels of arsenic,” Johnson said. “But they were saying that too much chlorine wasn’t good either.

They said that with this new water line that they’re putting in that it should take care of the problem.”

Upper Fruitland Delegate LoRenzo Bates said the water rights settlement will be a tremendous victory for Navajo Nation. “It provides water to all of those folks that don’t have water on Navajo and it opens the door for economic development in the usage of water, which creates jobs, which creates infrastructure to the Navajo Nation.”

Delegate George Arthur, who represents Burnham/San Juan/Nenahnezad chapters, said his communities largely have treated water available. The settlement will create an opportunity for economic development. “Water has a big, major role in economic development, and most of the water that is available presently is geared toward domestic use.”