KEESWOOD QUESTIONS OUTSIDE INTEREST IN WATER SETTLEMENT

It was shocking to see in the Gallup Independent that the Navajo Council’s Intergovernmental
Relations Committee (IGR) passed a resolution approving lawyer Stanley Pollack’s proposed settlement
for Navajo rights in the lower Colorado River basin. Roughly half of the Nation is in the lower basin, or
about 8,000,000 acres. The settlement would allow us a mere 31,000 acre feet of water annually (afa)
from the lower Colorado River. The Page, Arizona electric power plant uses more than that by itself.
Pollack says we can also have any “unallocated” water from the upper basin. There is no “unallocated”
water there!

For decades, experts expected Navajo to claim 5 million afa from the Colorado. We learned
in the Council’s water hearings ten years ago that experts recommended to several top Navajo leaders
in 2000 to “immediately claim” 10 million afa (to establish our serious intensions) in the lower basin
lawsuit that was on the verge of ending. Pollack has now reduced the recommendation by 99.7%. The
0.3% proposed on Navajo’s behalf is beyond ridiculous. The proposed pipeline will serve non-Navajo
communities too and will cost many $billions less than the huge values Pollack is throwing away.

Pollack has had a stranglehold on our leaders for almost 25 years. The Hopi’s late lawyer John
Boyden did the same. He was secretly working for outside interests. This was discovered after he died,
when his private records became public. Navajo Water Commissioners don’t know enough to question
Pollack’s dictates. Our other lawyers are not diligent enough. They won’t research enough to expose
Pollack–just like happened at Hopi.

The Independent showed IGR member Ervin Keeswood is suspicious of the new settlement. He
wonders why outside interests are supportive of this settlement. To those familiar with Navajo water
history from 1950s on, it’s obvious. Pollack is minimizing our rights, joining Arizona in “minimizing”
Indian water rights. The Independent said Senator Jon Kyl might not support the settlement. This is a
ploy to make our Navajo leaders cower in fear and to accept this ridiculously small portion of Colorado
River lower basin water being offered.

We have two treaties with the U.S.; 1849 and 1868. In New Mexico we could have claimed
water rights through the 1849 Treaty. New Mexico case law supports this. Pollack hid this as well.
Our Treaty of 1868 is going down the same path, rendered useless by a select few in Window Rock.
Our leaders should know withholding critical information from clients is misconduct. Or do they?

Pollack and New Mexico also inserted a sneaky passage in the San Juan settlement that throws
away Indian protections when Indians have been deceived in a settlement. The protections are called the
canons (or rules) of interpretation. This is case law in N.M. But now it has been thrown out by Pollack.
The Water Commission did not know this–or even that a Treaty of 1849 existed. He has left Navajo
with no recourse in the future, should we find the San Juan settlement was obtained through deception.

We also gave up water rights in 1962 worth over $3 billion today when we let 118,000 afa of
San Juan River water be diverted to the Rio Grande. Then Pollack gave up even more potential San Juan
rights without compensation. The $900 million cost of the Navajo-Gallup pipeline isn’t even at 1/3 the
value of what we gave up in 1962 alone.

President Joe Shirley keeps saying “we got more than half that river” referring to the San Juan
settlement. He unknowingly overstates our rights by 200%. The average annual flow of the San Juan at
the Bluff, Utah gage is 2.1 million afa. Navajo has settlement rights to only 375,000 acre feet, at most.
Therefore, we are getting about 18% of the river’s average annual flow, not more than 50%. The facts
which can be found on the Internet make it tougher for Pollack to deceive.

Navajo long ago boasted of claiming the whole San Juan River, and negotiating from there. We
did not. Pollack limited Navajo to claiming only from New Mexico’s limited share. But N.M. did not
become a state until 1912. We were federally recognized in 1849, and have been here since long before
the U. S. Government came unto our lands.

The tiny 31,000 afa offered for Navajo’s claim in the lower basin is, simply, water rights racism.
It is also economic racism and a plan for long-term economic termination of Navajo.

There are more falsehoods proved by this new settlement. Twelve years ago Pollack and his
supporters said there was no way to do a pipeline from Lake Powell south in Arizona. Now there is one
to be built, and that’s been long planned. Pollack also said there is no way to transfer water from the
upper Colorado basin to the lower basin, or vice versa. It is now part of this settlement—but a very small
part.

Also, Utah is going forward with their Lake Powell pipeline, sending 100,000 afa to the SW

corner of their state―which is Utah’s tiny part of the lower Colorado River basin. The plan is to pump
upper basin water to their lower basin, which Pollack said could not be done, but that of course was also
false.

Over the past 40 years, Navajo Generating Station (which is not owned by Navajo) at Page has
annually used about 33,000 acre feet of Navajo water (worth at least $33,000,000 annually) for free in
generating electricity. That comes to over a $billion of value lost to Navajo through NGS water use
alone–Navajo has received nothing.

And, 25% of that electricity at NGS is reserved for Arizona to pump hundreds of thousands of
acre feet of Navajo water to Phoenix and Tucson to fuel their economies.

What’s the big difference between Phoenix/Tucson, and Navajo? WATER! Our water and our
power make their economies possible. It’s only fair we are fairly compensated for, and fairly supplied
with, the key to our life and economics—WATER.

Where is the capital ($) for Navajo’s economic development? There isn’t any. Our capital is in
the value of our water that Pollack gives away. He suggests, “Look, I’m getting you nice faucet water
for each home.” Every urban ghetto in the country has faucet water, but they remain ghettos! Without
investment capital from our water, Navajo will remain stuck in this economic rut.

Unfortunately for us, we remain a colony to the Southwest. Pollack, his supporters, and outside
interests, will make sure we stay a colony. It’s obvious Pollack, Senator Kyl, and others want the current
Council to approve the latest water settlement just in case the new president and council might somehow
learn the truth.

If the proposed settlement goes through, it will be another part of what is turning out to be the
biggest fraud, ever, against an Indian tribe.

Ron Milford,
Fort Defiance