McCain, Kyl to talk water rights with tribes today
Published: April 5, 2012 at 9:18 am
Arizona Senator John McCain. (AP Photo/East Valley Tribune, Tim Hacker)
TUBA CITY — Arizona’s two U.S. senators are meeting with tribal leaders today to discuss a water rights settlement.
Jon Kyl introduced legislation earlier this year that would settle the Navajo and Hopi claims to the Little Colorado River system. The tribes would get groundwater delivery projects in exchange for giving up further claims to the water.
Kyl and fellow Republican John McCain are scheduled to meet privately with leaders of the two tribes in Tuba City.
The tribes must sign off on the settlement, along with 30 other entities, Congress and the president.
Environmentalists say they’ll be in Tuba City to protest the settlement they say falls short of what the tribes deserve.
Tribal officials say rehabilitating reservation land that was under a decades-long construction ban also is on the agenda.
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2 Responses to “McCain, Kyl to talk water rights with tribes today”
April 5th, 2012 at 9:45 am
Don’t do it! The man is only in it for his own interests. Not ours!
April 5th, 2012 at 10:26 am
”S.2109 asks the Navajo and Hopi peoples to waive their priority Water Rights to the surface waters of the Little Colorado River …… “from time immemorial and thereafter, forever” …………. in return for the shallow promise of uncertain federal appropriations to supply minimal amounts of drinking water to a handful of reservation communities.
The Bill — and the ‘Settlement Agreement” it ratifies – do not quantify Navajo and Hopi water rights – the foundation of all other southwestern Indian Water Rights settlements to date – thereby denying the Tribes the economic market value of their water rights, and forcing them into perpetual dependence on uncertain federal funding for any water projects.”