"DipodomysDeserti" (dipodomysdeserti)
03/27/2020 at 11:09 • Filed to: None
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"DipodomysDeserti" (dipodomysdeserti)
03/27/2020 at 11:09 • Filed to: None | 0
| 7 |
I posted this to my Water Law and policy course discussion board, and figured I’d get the Opponauts’ take as well. If you’ve lived on a reservation I’d love to hear your perspective. A few years ago an Opponaut mentioned possibly going to work on the Navajo Reservation. I know we have Opponauts whose family has some experience on the Hopi Reservation (which sits inside the Navajo Reservation).
To give a little background, water rights in the western US are generally determined by a practice known as prior appropriation. Under prior appropriation, the first person to put water to beneficial use, gets the right to it, even if their property does not have water already on it. This concept largely developed out of the California Gold Rush, as water needed to be diverted to mines. There are lots of caveats to this, as states all set their own water policy, and navigable waterways fall under the federal domain, but that’s the quick and dirty of it. In Winters v. United States (1908), the SC ruled that the federal government had “Reserved Rights” to water when they set up Indian reservations, and thus reservations have a right to water. As with anything that has to be decided by the courts, nothing is cut and dry, and there is ongoing litigation and debate as to what role the federal government is obligated to play as far as infrastructure is concerned.
Set aside your libertarian hat for a second when you consider this questions, as Indian tribes entered an agreement with the feds (under the threat of violence) to live on Indian reservations with the promise they’d be given sovereignty and secured rights in order to be self sufficient.
I have quite a bit of digital literature I can post up on water law issues if anyone is interested.
Anyways, figured I’d get our brains churning, so here’s my prompt:
I read this article today, and despite being utterly heartbreaking, it got me thinking about our class discussions on Federal Reserved Rights and access to water on Indian Reservations. Specifically in regards to the question of whether there is an obligation for the federal government to develop water infrastructure on reservations. We’ve mostly been looking at water policy in regards to agriculture, recreational, natural, industrial and consumptive uses, but access to clean, running water is vital for maintaining public health.
Many reaches of the Navajo Reservation lack access to running water (or even clean water in the case of uranium contamination). My wife’s family was living on the Navajo Reservation when she was born, and had to leave the hospital on the reservation and travel to Gallup, New Mexico, while my mother in law was in labor. They were told the hospital was not equipped for a complicated birth. The article cites that American Indians and Alaskan natives were 4x more likely to die from H1N1 than other ethnicities, so it doesn’t seem as if the situation has changed much since then.
I wanted to share the article, and possibly get the perspective of anyone who has lived on a reservation (my wife’s family moved off the reservation soon after she was born). And also just to help process all this and apply it to our studies.
The Vermillion Cliffs area is the most beautiful place on planet Earth, and I spend a lot of time on the Navajo Reservation hiking and camping with my family. If you haven’t driven highway 89A, add it to your bucket list.
Here’s my kids playing in the Colorado at Lee’s Ferry:
Check out that water line from when the Colorado was wild.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> DipodomysDeserti
03/27/2020 at 11:50 |
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It seems to me that the Fed could provide a community like this with a 5000-gallon water tanker or two and let the community operate it and manage it and keep their community in water and call it infrastructure. The fuel bill and a couple of drivers’ salaries would be a whole lot cheaper than maintaining a water system. Victor Davis Hansen, in his most recent blog, points out that unlike a year or two ago, California is not currently under water restriction, so Californians can wash their hands frequently without having to worry about wasting water.
I think it’s always a worthwhile step to consider sources whenever there is a news story and I am happy to know that at least on this occasion, NPR can pass muster.
Thanks for the post.
TheRealBicycleBuck
> DipodomysDeserti
03/27/2020 at 12:19 |
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My first introduction to water rights issues was reading Cadillac Desert as an assignment for a graduate course. Texas was dealing with water rights issues at the time and I don’t believe those have ever really been settled. The problems t here have to do with subsurface water rights and center around agricultural use. The biggest problem is unrestrained pumping to support irrigation, but the spark that created the firestorm was a fellow using his ag pumps to pull groundwater and pump it to cities experiencing water shortages during a period of drought. Since he wasn’t turning groundwater into surface water to be utilized within his water district, the Texas Water Development Board got involved.
As complicated as that is, surface water rights are even more complicated, especially when you involve other nations. Just look at the Rio Grande. It was once a grand river which could support river boat traffic. Now it’s just a trickle entering the sea. There have been battles between Texas and Mexico over how much water each side can use.
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DipodomysDeserti
> TheRealBicycleBuck
03/27/2020 at 12:44 |
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Oh yeah, whole other can of worms when you get into surface vs groundwater rights, especially since the two are some times the same water.
I’m also currently taking a Soil and Groundwater Contamination course, and the instructor is the former head of my county’s DOH.
Same goes for the Colorado entering the Sea of Cortez. Very delicate international and interstate agreements are involved.
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> DipodomysDeserti
03/27/2020 at 13:06 |
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Subsurface contamination and brownfields are a messy topic, especially from a legal perspective. I’m waiting for someone to argue that since the mineral rights were severed from the property, any subsurface contamination legal responsibilities belong to the person(s) holding the mineral rights.
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DipodomysDeserti
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
03/27/2020 at 13:18 |
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It was largely believed that the feds would declare a drought at Lake Mead this year, which would initiate the recently approved interstate water pact and would have effects on water availability and use in portions of CA . Politically, there’s no way that’s happening now.
Yes, the source always matters. I’m fortunate enough to have been formally studying this stuff for the last year, and informally for a a while, and can vet a lot of the info myself.
Water trucks would be a good idea, but you’d need a lot of them. The Navajo reservation is larger than some states and has around 350k people on it.
Vice is a shitty source , but they did a good video dealing with water quality issues on the res. Visited a Vietnam vet and tribal member (double whammy) along with other people.
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DipodomysDeserti
> TheRealBicycleBuck
03/27/2020 at 13:25 |
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They certainly are. These have been some of the craziest classes I’ve taken. There are no right answers! Everything is “it depends”.
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> DipodomysDeserti
03/27/2020 at 14:42 |
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I had no idea we were talking about so many people.