Native Americans
Feds Want Justices to End Navajo Fight for Colorado River Water
States that rely on water from the over-tapped Colorado River want the U.S. Supreme Court to block a lawsuit from the Navajo Nation that could upend how water is shared in the Western U.S.
The tribe doesn't have enough water and says that the federal government is at fault. Roughly a third of residents on the vast Navajo Nation don't have running water in their homes.
More than 150 years ago, the U.S. government and the tribe signed treaties that promised the tribe a "permanent home" — a promise the Navajo Nation says includes a sufficient supply of water. The tribe says the government broke its promise to ensure the tribe has enough water and that people are suffering as a result.
The federal government disputes that claim. And states, such as Arizona, California and Nevada, argue that more water for the Navajo Nation would cut into already scarce supplies for cities, agriculture and business growth.
The high court will hold oral arguments Monday in a case with critical implications for how water from the drought-stricken Colorado River is shared and the extent of the U.S. government's obligations to Native American tribes.
A win for the Navajo Nation won't directly result in more water for the roughly 175,000 people who live on the largest reservation in the U.S. But it's a piece of what has been a multi-faceted approach over decades to obtain a basic need.
Tina Becenti, a mother of five, made two or three short trips a day to her mom's house or a public water spot to haul water back home, filling several five-gallon buckets and liter-sized pickle jars. They filled slowly, sapping hours from her day. Her sons would sometimes help lift the heavy containers into her Nissan SUV that she'd drive carefully back home to avoid spills.
"Every drop really matters," Becenti said.
That water had to be heated then poured into a tub to bathe her young twin girls. Becenti's mother had running water, so her three older children would sometimes go there to shower. After a couple of years, Becenti finally got a large tank installed by the nonprofit DigDeep so she could use her sink.
DigDeep, which filed a legal brief in support of the Navajo Nation's case, has worked to help tribal members gain access to water as larger water-rights claims are pressed.
Extending water lines to the sparsely populated sections of the 69,000-square-kilometer reservation that spans three states is difficult and costly. But tribal officials say additional water supplies would help ease the burden and create equity.
"You drive to Flagstaff, you drive to Albuquerque, you drive to Phoenix, there is water everywhere, everything is green, everything is watered up," said Rex Kontz, deputy general manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. "You don't see that on Navajo."
The tribe primarily relies on groundwater to serve homes and businesses.
For decades, the Navajo Nation has fought for access to surface water, including the Colorado River and its tributaries, that it can pipe to more remote locations for homes, businesses and government offices.
It's a legal fight that resonates with tribes across the U.S., said Dylan Hedden-Nicely, the director of the Native American Law Program at the University of Idaho and an attorney representing tribal organizations that filed a brief in support of the Navajo Nation.
The Navajo Nation has reached settlements for water from the San Juan River in New Mexico and Utah. Both of those settlements draw from the Colorado River's Upper Basin.
The tribe has yet to reach agreement with Arizona and the federal government for water rights from the Colorado River in the Lower Basin that includes the states of California, Arizona and Nevada. It also has sought water from a tributary, the Little Colorado River, another major legal dispute that's playing out separately.
In the U.S Supreme Court case, the Navajo Nation wants the U.S. Department of the Interior to account for the tribe's needs in Arizona and come up with a plan to meet those needs.
A federal appeals court ruled the Navajo Nation's lawsuit could move forward, overturning a decision from a lower court.
Attorneys for the Navajo Nation base their claims on two treaties the tribe and the U.S. signed in 1849 and 1868. The latter allowed Navajos to return to their ancestral homelands in the Four Corners region after being forcibly marched to a desolate tract in eastern New Mexico.
The Navajo Nation wants the Supreme Court to find that those treaties guaranteed them enough water to sustain their homeland. And the tribe wants a chance to make its case before a lower federal court.
The federal government says it has helped the tribe get water from the Colorado River's tributaries, but no treaty or law forces officials to address the tribe's general water needs. The Interior Department declined to comment on the pending case.
"We absolutely think they're entitled to water, but we don't think the lower Colorado River is the source," said Rita Maguire, the attorney representing states in the Lower Basin who oppose the tribe's claims.
If the Supreme Court sides with the Navajo Nation, other tribes might make similar demands, Maguire said.
Arizona, Nevada and California contend the Navajo Nation is making an end run around another Supreme Court case that divvied up water in the Colorado River's Lower Basin.
"The first question in front of the court now is: why is the lower court dealing with the issue at all?" said Grant Christensen, a federal Indian law expert and professor at Stetson University.
Even if the justices side with the Navajo Nation, the tribe wouldn't immediately get water. The case would go back to the U.S. District Court in Arizona, and rights to more water still could be years, if not, decades away. The Navajo Nation also could reach a settlement with Arizona and the federal government for rights to water from the Colorado River and funding to deliver it to tribal communities.
Tribal water rights often are tied to the date a reservation was established, which would give the Navajo Nation one of the highest priority rights to Colorado River water and could force conservation on others, said Hedden-Nicely of the University of Idaho.
Given the likelihood of a long road ahead, Kontz of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority says many older Navajo won't live to see running water in their homes.
Becenti, the 42-year-old mother of five, remembers shedding tears of joy when running water finally was installed in her house and her family could use a flushable indoor toilet.
It was a relief to "go to the facility without having to worry about bugs, lizards, snakes," she said.
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A guide to Native American candidates for Congress in 2024
Native Americans comprise 3.4% of the U.S. population but hold only 0.07% of all elected offices. In 2020, a record-breaking six Native Americans were elected to Congress. This year, nine Native Americans, including four incumbents, are vying for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES:
Incumbent Josh Brecheen (Choctaw), Oklahoma, 2nd District
Brecheen is a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Budget Committee. He previously served in the Oklahoma Senate, where he limited himself to an eight-year term.
In an editorial for the McCarville Report following a 2023 trip to the U.S. border with Mexico, Brecheen cited nearly 4.7 million illegal crossings since 2020 and record levels of drug and human trafficking. He argues that policy changes, including halting border wall construction and revising federal immigration laws, have weakened border security.
Brecheen would like to complete the border wall and implement advanced security technology, including ground sensors, to improve surveillance.
He prioritizes a strong military and supports gun rights. He opposes abortion and defunding the police.
On financial issues, he pushes for budget cuts to reduce inflation and the national debt, and he says he is committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Sharon Clahchischilliage (Navajo), New Mexico, 3rd District
Clahchischilliage currently serves on the New Mexico Public Education Commission and is running against the incumbent Democrat, Teresa Fernandez.
The district includes most of northern New Mexico and some of the eastern part of the state. Her district holds large fossil fuel and mineral reserves, which Clahchischilliage says are vital to economic development.
“It’s time for Congress to hear a voice like mine, someone who has served our country, taught in the classroom, raised on the family farm and fought against the radicals in Santa Fe," she told the Albuquerque Journal in September. "From energy production to protecting the farmers, ranchers and herders, New Mexicans need someone who has lived their experiences, not tell them how to live.”
Clahchischilliage previously served in the state Legislature, supporting water rights and investments in infrastructure, education and economic development. During a candidate forum October 7 in Santa Fe, she said she does not believe in climate change.
“The earth is cleansing itself,” she said.
She opposes gun safety laws and believes the government should focus more on crime involving the use of guns rather than on the weapons themselves.
Incumbent Tom Cole (Chickasaw), Oklahoma, 4th District
Cole was elected to Congress in 2002 and is serving his 10th term. He is the longest-serving Native American lawmaker in House history.
In April, he became the first Native American to chair the House Appropriations Committee.
“States and the federal government must work with Native Americans to maintain the integrity of their heritage, culture, and rights,” Cole wrote in his weekly column shortly after being named. “At the same time, the federal government must uphold its constitutional oath to tribes to provide basic resources such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, and law enforcement, among many others, in Indian Country.”
He says veterans' services, Social Security reform and border security are his top priorities.
In the final days of his campaign, Cole led a bipartisan delegation to the Middle East to strengthen alliances and deepen collaboration on security challenges. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top officials briefed the group on current military operations and hostage rescue efforts.
Yvette Herrell (Cherokee), New Mexico, 2nd District
Herrell is challenging Democratic incumbent Gabe Vasquez in a district that includes a chunk of the southern border with Mexico.
A former U.S. representative for this district from 2021 to 2023, she favors restarting construction of the border wall and ending so-called "catch and release" policies that hold migrants in detention rather than allowing them into the community while they wait for their hearings.
Endorsed by the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association and the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association, she advocates "defending" rather than "defunding" police. Herrell strongly supports Second Amendment gun rights and has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association.
Herrell says she prioritizes economic growth through reduced regulation, lower energy prices and increased domestic oil and gas production, which, in part, could fund state education programs. She opposes abortion, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES
Dennis Baker (Muscogee of Euchee descent), Oklahoma, 1st District
Baker is an attorney and former FBI special agent whose platform focuses on worker rights. He supports raising the federal minimum wage, protecting and expanding labor unions and strengthening worker protections.
Baker says he was moved to run for political office after watching the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“I saw the results of political extremism and said, you know, that's not my values. I don't think it's America's values,” he told Tulsa’s FOX23 News in July.
Baker opposes any state-level challenges to tribal authority. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta that state governments have the authority to prosecute certain cases on tribal lands. Baker opposes any state-level challenges to the authority of 39 recognized tribes in Oklahoma.
Baker also supports reproductive rights and marriage equality.
Incumbent Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk), Kansas, 3rd District
Davids was elected to represent Kansas' 3rd District in 2018, one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress — the other was Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna), representing New Mexico’s 1st District and currently U.S. secretary of the interior.
Davids has a background as a lawyer and former mixed martial arts fighter. Her career in Washington has focused on reducing living costs for families, promoting economic growth and advocating for government accountability.
She worked with Republican Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which addressed domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking She and Cole also introduced the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2024, a bill that, if passed, would create a commission to investigate the federal Indian boarding school system and recommend actions to promote the healing of survivors and descendants.
In her district, Davids secured more than $1.5 billion in federal funds through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to improve the state’s infrastructure.
Incumbent Mary Peltola (Yup’ik), Alaska, District at Large
Peltola grew up in towns along the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska. She began her political career early. In 1998, at age 24, she won a seat in the state House of Representatives, the first Alaska Native to serve in that position. In 2022, she won Alaska’s only seat in the U.S. House, and just days after being sworn in, she introduced a bill establishing an office of food security within the Department of Veterans Affairs, which passed in the House with strong bipartisan support.
A strong advocate for Alaska Natives, her top concerns are subsistence fishing, food security, infrastructure and the impact of climate change.
She also worries about out-migration from her state.
"We are seeing this negative trend of our young people leaving and people not moving to Alaska," Peltola told Alaska Public Media on October 30. "I think that we really need to be talking more and finding more solutions on food security, on shipping costs, on energy costs."
Madison Horn (Cherokee), Oklahoma, 5th District
Horn is running for a seat in Congress for the second time. In 2022, she lost her bid for a U.S. Senate seat. This year, she is looking to unseat House Republican incumbent Stephanie Bice.
Her background is in cybersecurity and national security. She was a founding member of Siemens Energy’s global cyber practice and later CEO of Critical Fault, an Oklahoma-based cybersecurity firm whose logo is “paranoid with a purpose.”
In a recent post on X, Horn noted that China, Russia and Iran are advancing their cyber capabilities and building alliances to threaten U.S. security. Her key concerns include a digital Cold War with China over economic security and the risks of quantum computing to current encryption systems.
“We need technical expertise and with a strategic vision to craft modern policies that enhance American resilience against evolving threats,” she said.
Jonathan Nez (Navajo), Arizona, 2nd District
Nez began his political career as the vice president of the Shonto Chapter, one of the 110 local, semi-self-autonomous districts on the Navajo Nation, the largest Indian reservation in the U.S. Later, he served on the Navajo Nation council, and in 2015 was elected the Nation’s vice president and served until 2023.
He steered Navajos through the COVID-19 pandemic and organized a vaccination campaign through which 70% of Navajo citizens were vaccinated.
Nez says his policy priorities include protecting voting rights, advancing border security and immigration reform, ensuring water security and environmental sustainability in the face of climate change, and upholding reproductive rights and marriage equality as matters of individual autonomy.
US forest managers finalize land exchange with Native American tribe in Arizona
U.S. forest managers have finalized a land exchange with the Yavapai-Apache Nation that has been decades in the making and will significantly expand the size of the tribe's reservation in Arizona's Verde Valley, tribal leaders announced Tuesday.
As part of the arrangement, six parcels of private land acquired over the years by the tribe will be traded to the U.S. Forest Service in exchange for the tribe gaining ownership of 12.95 square kilometers of national forest land that is part of the tribe’s ancestral homelands. The tribe will host a signing ceremony next week to celebrate the exchange, which was first proposed in 1996.
“This is a critical step in our history and vital to the nation’s cultural and economic recovery and future prosperity,” Yavapai-Apache Chairwoman Tanya Lewis said in a post on the tribe's website.
Prescott National Forest Supervisor Sarah Clawson said in a statement that there had been many delays and changes to the proposal over the years, but the tribe and the Forest Service never lost sight of developing an agreement that would benefit both public and tribal lands.
The federal government has made strides over recent years to protect more lands held sacred by Native American tribes, to develop more arrangements for incorporating Indigenous knowledge into management of public lands and to streamline regulations for putting land into trust for tribes.
The Yavapai-Apache Nation is made up of two distinct groups of people — the Wipuhk’a’bah and the Dil’zhe’e. Their homelands spanned more than 41,440 square kilometers of what is now central Arizona. After the discovery of gold in the 1860s near Prescott, the federal government carved out only a fraction to establish a reservation. The inhabitants eventually were forced from the land, and it wasn't until the early 1900s that they were able to resettle a tiny portion of the area.
In the Verde Valley, the Yavapai-Apache Nation's reservation lands are currently comprised of less than 7.77 square kilometers near Camp Verde. The small land base hasn't been enough to develop economic opportunities or to meet housing needs, Lewis said, pointing to dozens of families who are on a waiting list for new homes.
Lewis said that in acknowledgment of the past removal of the Yavapai-Apache people from their homelands, the preamble to the tribal constitution recognizes that land acquisition is among the Yavapai-Apache Nation's responsibilities.
Aside from growing the reservation, the exchange will bolster efforts by federal land managers to protect the headwaters of the Verde River and ensure the historic Yavapai Ranch is not sold for development. The agreement also will improve recreational access to portions of four national forests in Arizona.
On Navajo Nation, push to electrify more homes on vast reservation
After a five-year wait, Lorraine Black and Ricky Gillis heard the rumblings of an electrical crew reach their home on the sprawling Navajo Nation.
In five days' time, their home would be connected to the power grid, replacing their reliance on a few solar panels and propane lanterns. No longer would the CPAP machine Gillis uses for sleep apnea or his home heart monitor transmitting information to doctors 400 miles away face interruptions due to intermittent power. It also means Black and Gillis can now use more than a few appliances — such as a fridge, a TV, and an evaporative cooling unit — at the same time.
"We're one of the luckiest people who get to get electric," Gillis said.
Many Navajo families still live without running water and electricity, a product of historic neglect and the struggle to get services to far-flung homes on the 70,000-square-kilometer (27,000-square-mile) Native American reservation that lies in parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Some rely on solar panels or generators, which can be patchy, and others have no electricity whatsoever.
Gillis and Black filed an application to connect their home back in 2019. But when the coronavirus pandemic started ravaging the tribe and everything besides essential services was shut down on the reservation, it further stalled the process.
Their wait highlights the persistent challenges in electrifying every Navajo home, even with recent injections of federal money for tribal infrastructure and services and as extreme heat in the Southwest intensified by climate change adds to the urgency.
"We are a part of America that a lot of the time feels kind of left out," said Vircynthia Charley, district manager at the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, a non-for-profit utility that provides electric, water, wastewater, natural gas and solar energy services.
For years, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority has worked to get more Navajo homes connected to the grid faster. Under a program called Light Up Navajo, which uses a mix of private and public funding, outside utilities from across the U.S. send electric crews to help connect homes and extend power lines.
But installing power on the reservation roughly the size of West Virginia is time-consuming and expensive due to its rugged geography and the vast distances between homes. Drilling for power poles there can take several hours because of underground rock deposits while some homes near Monument Valley must have power lines installed underground to meet strict regulations around development in the area.
About 32% of Navajo homes still have no electricity. Connecting the remaining 10,400 homes on the reservation would cost $416 million, said Deenise Becenti, government and public affairs manager at the utility.
This year, Light Up Navajo connected 170 more families to the grid. Since the program started in 2019, 882 Navajo families have had their homes electrified. If the program stays funded, Becenti said it could take another 26 years to connect every home on the reservation.
Those that get connected immediately reap the benefits.
Until this month, Black and Gillis' solar panels that the utility installed a few years ago would last about two to three days before their battery drained in cloudy weather. It would take another two days to recharge.
"You had to really watch the watts and whatever you're using on a cloudy day," Gillis said.
Then a volunteer power crew from Colorado helped install 14 power poles while the tribal utility authority drilled holes six feet deep in which the poles would sit. The crew then ran a wire about a mile down a red sand road from the main power line to the couple's home.
"The lights are brighter," Black remarked after her home was connected.
In recent years, significantly more federal money has been allocated for tribes to improve infrastructure on reservations, including $32 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — of which Navajo Nation received $112 million for electric connections. The Navajo tribal utility also received $17 million through the Biden administration's climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, to connect families to the electric grid. But it can be slow to see the effects of that money on the ground due to bureaucracy and logistics.
Next spring, the tribal utility authority hopes to connect another 150 homes, including the home of Priscilla and Leo Dan.
For the couple, having grid electricity at their home near Navajo Mountain in Arizona would end a nearly 12-year wait. They currently live in a recreational vehicle elsewhere closer to their jobs but have worked on their home on the reservation for years. With power there, they could spend more time where Priscilla grew up and where her dad still lives.
It would make life simpler, Priscilla said. "Because otherwise, everything, it seems like, takes twice as long to do."
Native Americans react to Biden apology as a good ‘first step’
President Joe Biden visited the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona on Friday to deliver a long-awaited official apology to Native Americans for the federal boarding school system that severed the family, tribal and cultural ties of thousands of Indian children over multiple generations.
“I say this with all sincerity: This, to me, is one the most consequential things I've ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career as president of the United States,” Biden said.
He described how Native children were “stolen, taken away to places they didn't know by people they'd never met who spoke a language they had never heard,” he said.
“Children would arrive at school, their clothes taken off, their hair that they were told [was] sacred was chopped off, their names literally erased and replaced by a number or an English name,” he continued, “emotionally, physically and sexually abused, forced into hard labor, some put up for adoption without the consent of their birth parents, some left for dead in unmarked graves.”
When the time came to apologize, Biden shouted the words, “I formally apologize!”
Mixed reactions
In 2021, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland launched an investigation into federal and federally funded Indian boarding schools. The investigation confirmed that more than 18,600 Native American, Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian children were forced to attend residential schools; 1,000 died during their enrollment.
The report recommended the U.S. government formally acknowledge and apologize for its role in the system and take steps to help survivors heal from its effects.
VOA spoke with Christine Diindiisi McCleave, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota and former CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), which collaborated with the Interior investigation.
“I think politically it is extremely significant that Biden traveled to tribal lands in Gila River to deliver the apology publicly, not bury it in a defense appropriations bill,” she said, referencing a 2009 defense spending bill that acknowledged “years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies and the breaking of covenants” and apologized for instances of “violence, maltreatment and neglect.”
“However, as a survivor, as somebody who worked for many years to make progress on this issue, yes, we need the acknowledgment, but we also need actions to follow that up,” she said.
Friday’s apology came late in Biden’s term. McCleave said she worried that a Republican win in the November 5 presidential vote could reverse the gains for tribes made during the Biden-Harris administration.
“I hope they pass the Truth and Healing Commission bill before the new term begins,” she said.
The bipartisan Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, currently making its way through Congress, would create a commission to investigate the boarding school system and recommend action to promote healing.
Schools only part of the story
On Friday, Biden summarized his investments in Indian Country, which include $32 billion from the American Rescue Plan, $13 billion to support improvements in tribal infrastructure and $700 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to combat the effects of climate change.
He did not, however, address growing calls from Native communities for the return of historic lands, a campaign dubbed “Land Back.”
Brenda J. Child, a citizen of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa in Minnesota, is a professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota who has written extensively about Indian boarding schools from the perspective of Indigenous Americans.
“Boarding schools were about dispossessing Indian people of their lands,” she said, “which went hand in hand with the complex policy called the General Allotment Act of 1887, which helped break up the traditional systems of land tenure.”
Also known as the Dawes Act, it divided Native Americans’ communal tribal lands into individual plots that were doled out to families and individuals. The leftover land – about 36 million hectares (90 million acres) – was opened up for sale to non-Native settlers, passing out of Indian control.
“So, what do we do now?” Child asked. “Apologies are nice, but if you don't change the behavior, we're still stuck. Now it's time to return some of that land that we lost.”
Watch Biden’s entire speech below:
One of the last Navajo Code Talkers from World War II dies at 107
John Kinsel Sr., one of the last remaining Navajo Code Talkers who transmitted messages during World War II based on the tribe's native language, has died. He was 107.
Navajo Nation officials in Window Rock announced Kinsel's death on Saturday.
Tribal President Buu Nygren has ordered all flags on the reservation to be flown at half-staff until Oct. 27 at sunset to honor Kinsel.
"Mr. Kinsel was a Marine who bravely and selflessly fought for all of us in the most terrifying circumstances with the greatest responsibility as a Navajo Code Talker," Nygren said in a statement Sunday.
With Kinsel's death, only two original Navajo Code Talkers are still alive: Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald and Thomas H. Begay.
Hundreds of Navajos were recruited by the Marines to serve as Code Talkers during the war, transmitting messages based on their then-unwritten native language.
They confounded Japanese military cryptologists during World War II and participated in all assaults the Marines led in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, including at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu and Iwo Jima.
The Code Talkers sent thousands of messages without error on Japanese troop movements, battlefield tactics and other communications crucial to the war's ultimate outcome.
Kinsel was born in Cove, Arizona, and lived in the Navajo community of Lukachukai.
He enlisted in the Marines in 1942 and became an elite Code Talker, serving with the 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Marine Division during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
President Ronald Reagan established Navajo Code Talkers Day in 1982 and the Aug. 14 holiday honors all the tribes associated with the war effort.
The day is an Arizona state holiday and Navajo Nation holiday on the vast reservation that occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah.