At issue is whether the Navajo Nation can press ahead with a lawsuit that seeks a federal plan to supply its residents’ unmet need for water.
The Supreme Court will hear a major water rights dispute from Arizona on Monday to decide whether the federal government has broken its promises to the Navajo Nation for more than 150 years.
That treaty “promised both land and water sufficient for the Navajos to return to a permanent home in their ancestral territory,” attorneys for the Navajo Nation told the court. “Broken promises. The Nation is still waiting for the water it needs.” At issue now is whether the Navajo Nation can press ahead with a lawsuit that seeks a federal plan to supply its residents’ unmet need for water.
“The Nation’s right to farm reservation lands ... gives rise to an implied right to the water necessary to do so,” the appeals court said. However, it stopped short of deciding whether this included “rights to the mainstream of the Colorado River or any other specific water sources.”But in the fall, the Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from both the Interior Department and Arizona that seek to toss out the 9th Circuit’s decision.
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