Laserfiche WebLink
<br />13 <br /> <br />NIIP for the Navajo and, for the Rio Grande, a project called the San Juan-Chama <br /> <br /> <br />Diversion.3S The Navajo Irrigation Project was when completed to divert 508,000 acre- <br /> <br /> <br />feet of water annually to irrigation 110,630 acres of land. Water was to be stored <br /> <br /> <br />behind Navajo Dam and would move through a total of 450 miles of canals, tunnels, <br /> <br /> <br />siphons, and underground pipes in the course of irrigating project lands. NIIP was to <br /> <br /> <br />be completed 14 years after authorization.3S The Chama Project was to divert 110,000 <br /> <br /> <br />acre.feet annually through three tunnels from Rio Blanco, a tributary of the San Juan, <br /> <br /> <br />to Rio Chama, a tributary of the Rio Grande. To be completed in five years, the <br /> <br />diversion's waters were to be used primarily for municipal and industrial non-Indian <br />purposes.37 <br /> <br />In the course of reaching agreement on the two projects, the Navajo Tribe <br /> <br />compromised or waived certain claims to San Juan waters derived from Winters. <br /> <br />About some of the waived claims, one can be certain. First, the tribe agreed to allow <br /> <br />110,000 acre-feet of San Juan water to which they had Winters claims to be diverted <br /> <br />to the Rio Grande Basin annually. At the first negotiating session in which Navajo <br /> <br />3S~ H. Doc. No. 424, ~ note 17 at xxix and Navajo Tribal Advisory Council <br />Resolution ACJ-I-57. Tribal Advisory Council Resolutions may be read at the Law <br />Library of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice in Window Rock, Arizona. <br /> <br />3SH. Doc. 424, ~ note 17 at 274-278 and B. Boman, Consumptive Use on the <br />Navaio Indian Irriiation Proiect 3-4 (1983). <br /> <br />37H. Doc. No. 424, ~ note 17 at 343. Though the proposal for the Chama <br />Diversion included some water for Indians in the Rio Grande Valley, in fact no water <br />from the diversion is put to Indian uses today. That no water is currently put to Indian <br />uses, Interview with Philip Mutz, Interstate Streams Commissioner of New Mexico, in <br />Santa Fe, New Mexico (June 18, 1988). That the diversion would serve Indians in the <br />Rio Grande valley, see. e.i., House Hearinll 1961. ~ note 14 at 185. <br />