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<br />Introduction <br /> <br />The U.S. Congress in 1962 authorized the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, or NIIP, ;1 <br /> <br />110,630-acre, 508,000 acre-foot irrigation project located in the northeastern comer of <br />the Navajo Reservation, just south of Farmington, New Mexico.' In the course of <br /> <br />negotiating over NIIP with the federal government and the state of New Mexico, the <br /> <br />Navajo Tribe made certain concessions regarding its legal claims to the waters of the <br />San Juan River under the 1908 U.S. Supreme Court case, Winters v. United States.2 <br />It has been claimed by some observers of NIIP that these concessions amount to <br />quantification of Navajo Winters rights, or limitation for all time to a specified <br />amount.3 The purpose of this article is to show that it is not a simple matter, based <br /> <br />'Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, 43 U.S. Code Sec. 615iii-615zz (1962). The <br />language of the act does not actually appear in the Code. For the language, ~ Navajo <br />Indian Irrigation Project, Pub. L. No. 87483, 1962 U.S. Code Congo & Admin. News <br />(76 Stat.) 120. [Hereinafter NIIP Act] Citations will be made to sections of the Public <br />Law. . <br /> <br />2Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908). <br /> <br />3See. e.g., C. DuMars and H. Ingram, "Congressional Quantification of Indian <br />Reserved Water Rights: A Definitive Solution or Mirage?" 17 Natural Resources Journal <br />17 (1980) (the authors of this article say that "the Indian question was supposedly settled <br />on the San Juan" with NIIP, but that considerable uncertainty remains. Id. at 23-24. They <br />present competing arguments on the issues. For the argument that the Navajo did .!lQ! <br />quantify their Winters rights with NIIP, ~ 28-29; for the the argument that they did, <br />ill Id. at 35-39). See also M. Price and G. Weatherford, "Indian Water Rights in Theory <br />and Practice," 118 Law and Contemporaty Problems 97 at 119-130 (1976) (those authors <br />write that with the passage of NIIP's authorizing legislation, "[a]n unquantified Winters <br />right with all its uncertainties, had been converted to the promise of water works that <br />could be of use to the Navajo people. Something was surrendered ... in exchange for a <br />promise of substantial federal funds to develop a portion of the Navajo economy that was <br />desperately in need of nourishment." Id. at 124. See also Thorson, "Resolving Conflicts <br />Through Intergovernmental Agreements: The Pros and Cons of Negotiated Settlements," <br />in Indian Water 1985: Collected Essays 25 at 32-33 (C. Miklas and S. Shupe, eds. 1986) <br />