Concerned citizens for Dine’ Water Rights are asking for your support in stopping the Navajo Nation from approving the proposed Arizona Water Settlement for the Little Colorado River and the Lower Basin of the main stem Colorado River.
On September 16, Stan Pollack, Louis Denetsosie, the Navajo Nation Water Commission, and key supporters in the council will force a vote on the Arizona Water Settlement. We believe their strategy is two-fold. First is to try and approve the settlement before the new Administration and Council is elected and seated on November 2nd. Second is to use the 64 delegates that will be vacating their seats to help pass their ill-conceived agenda, then blame them–when our children find out they have been left with nothing.

We are asking that you talk with your chapter officials to draft resolutions against the water rights settlement, and to tell your council delegates to disapprove the proposal and allow for the new administration and delegates to prepare a more acceptable settlement worthy of the Navajo people and future generations.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE OUTREACH PAMPHLET (PDF)

There is no agriculture water and NO published plan on how much water EACH Chapter will get from the proposed settlement’s Western pipeline. It goes west off the Nation and we are just an add-on to what the outsiders are designing for themselves; telling us it’s okay for Navajo to put a spigot on their line–after it is built. Pollack’s “water team” has abandoned our people.
Mr. Pollack’s agenda has not changed. Just like he told Navajo that if they did not use their water from the Colorado

Central Arizona Project power and water sources, showing Navajo to be a water and electric power colony for Arizona. © Jack Ahasteen, circa 2002.

River, they would lose it! This was until this falsehood was challenged in public by grassroots people who did their own research. Pollack immediately backed down from the truth.
The truth was based on the “Winter’s Doctrine,” which stated, Reserved or Winters rights are specifically applicable to the federal government and recognized Indian Tribes—which includes the Navajo People, and confirmed in the following citation:
“Indian reserved water rights differ significantly from [others]. They generally arise from land ownership rather than use; they may be asserted at anytime; and they are not lost through nonuse. Unlike appropriative rights, reserved rights are not based on diversion and actual beneficial use. Instead, sufficient water is reserved to fulfill the purpose for which a reservation was established.” Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. (Written by over 20 lawyers in the field.) 2005. P. 1169
This is only one of hundreds of references (public information) that say the term “reserved water rights” employs the word “reserved” to specifically mean that “Use it or lose it” DOES NOT APPLY to Indian reserved water rights. That is the fundamental concept behind “reserved’ (a.k.a. “Winters”) rights to water.
Nearly every drop of OUR WATER was stolen from us by outsiders and newcomers to our land. It makes more sense to litigate/negotiate pursuant to the Winters Doctrine, than to bow down to these thieves, including thief Pollack.
The present way Pollack & the Water Commission negotiate with and minimize our rights is dereliction of duty; especially when we have Winters reserved water rights, supported by two treaties, that say we have senior rights ahead of almost all others.
Stan Pollack, in 1997, in his own words, told a public meeting in Santa Fe, documented by the University of Arizona, that Navajo is entitled to a claim “of not less than 5,000,000 (five million) acre-feet” of Colorado River water per year as a starting point for our water rights negotiations.
Pollack again was told several years later by the best in the country to file immediately for 10,000,000 (10 million) acre feet, and that every passive day is a negative day for the Navajo Nation. Yet he delayed another decade and still did not file for our larger rights
In direct contradiction to the huge claims he said we were entitled to, Pollack and the Water Commission are telling Navajos to settle for 31,000 acre-feet of Lower Colorado River water. That is less than 1% of what Mr. Pollack publicly stated Navajo was entitled to at least claim and negotiate for in 1997.
While water rights teams of other tribes have fought hard to maximize their rights, ours instead have fought hard to minimize our rights.
Five small Colorado River tribes have rights to almost one million acre feet annually (afa) of lower basin water. The 3,500 members of the Colorado River Indian Tribe, alone, have rights to over 700,000 afa.
Ten off-river tribes live 150 to 300 miles from the River, yet all have rights to lower basin water (nearly 400,000 afa for one tribe).
This speaks volumes about the dismal efforts of Pollack and the Navajo Water Commission regarding our water rights.
Each tribe treats its rights differently—either using, leasing, selling, or some combination. Unlike the 10, our reservation touches the Colorado for 110 miles, but we as yet have no adjudicated rights to it. Pollack and his
team/supporters say we should accept a ridiculous 31,000 afa from the lower basin. Our land in the lower basin (western Navajo) covers roughly 8 million acres. Only 31,000 afa is chicken feed; an insult to our ancestors, our treaties, and our children and grandchildren.

Here are the facts (from Goldtooth et al. 2008). The Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal, shown in Ahasteen’s picture, delivers roughly 1.5 million acre feet of water annually (same as 1.5 million football fields a foot deep) from the Colorado River to the Phoenix and Tucson regions. The canal runs 336 miles. We cross it going to Phoenix.
The market value of CAP water is perhaps $30 billion dollars. But it’s worth much more. Without it, Arizona’s economy would collapse. Navajo makes Arizona’s CAP-dependent economy possible. Here’s how.
For over 30 years our Black Mesa coal has gone to the Navajo Generating Station (NGS). We do not own the NGS. The coal is burned to create steam and electricity from Navajo water taken from Lake Powell. Annual use is about 33,000 acre feet; total used comes to over 1,000,000 acre feet. At today’s prices, that is over $1 billion worth of water, for which Navajo has never received a penny; though the water is part of our acknowledged share from the upper Colorado basin.
The Nation’s water lawyer, Stanley Pollack, chose not to tell our people of this huge loss or the NGS’s role in CAP. Nor did he tell of the great wealth Navajo provides others while receiving little. Nor did he use these facts to justify our getting a fair share of the water and value we have given others.
Also, Navajo gets no power generated at NGS. And, almost one-fourth (1/4) of the power is dedicated to pumping Colorado River water through the CAP canal.
About 24% of NGS electricity goes to the Central Arizona Project pumps to push water uphill to Phoenix and Tucson. Thus, our resources have fueled one of the leading growth states in the United States—Arizona!
Also, half of Glen Canyon Dam is on Navajo land, and roughly half the water stored (up to 25 million acre feet) sits atop our land. Electricity from the dam goes elsewhere. We get no continuing payments for the land, and none for our water that generates power. All we can do today is look at Lake Powell from the shore.
In an article written by columnist Matt Jenkins in 2008 as propaganda for Pollack (it was reprinted in the Navajo Times), Pollack mocked the attitudes of grassroots Navajos, who, unlike him, support treaty rights, full water rights, and full compensation for rights lost.
In response to his patronizing comments about grassroots patriots only in this for the money, we answered, “No, the grassroots patriots of the Navajo Nation only want our nation to survive, to gain access to full rights, to receive just compensation for rights waived or lost, to have decent infrastructure, and to reduce the devastating unemployment rate on Navajo of 50%. Reducing our unemployment rates even down to the Great Depression levels of 17%, would be a far better future for the Navajo.
This kind of far-better future would be an astounding achievement—one which Pollack and his outside supporters, like columnist Jenkins, continue to sabotage!
Bottom line is the proposed Arizona water settlement must not be approved! And, Pollack and his “team” must be replaced by lawyers and engineers, that do not bow down to States Lawyers and Water Commissions—and who fight to maximize Navajo Water Rights.
Remember that in the 1860s another non-Navajo, Kit Carson, pretended to be a friend of the Navajos, but turned around and helped the U.S. Government round up our people and send them on the Long Walk. The situation today, is no different today–someone pretending to be our friend–while slyly persuading the Navajo People to settle for a mere 31,000 acre-feet of water.
If this Arizona Water Settlement is approved, we will have given up the last and most precious sovereign right we have, WATER!
Pollack says he is getting us faucet water. Every ghetto in America has faucet water, yet they remain ghettos!! We do not want to end up living in poverty, begging the states for water, but it will be that way, if we don’t stop Pollack and his supporters.

Email: haskan1990[at]yahoo[dot]com
Or visit
Dinewaterrights.org