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<br />001573 <br /> <br />2002] <br /> <br />THE LAST GREEN lAGOON <br /> <br />929 <br /> <br />River Indian Community, the Tohono O'odham Nation, and the <br />San Carlos Apache Tribe, as well as provide water for settlement <br />of future tribal claims.160 The bill would dedicate nearly half of all <br />CAP water for tribal use, and provide funding for tribal water <br />development. 161 In addition, on the mainstream, the Quechan <br />Indian Tribe is pursuing a land claim proceeding that could <br />wrest some 78,000 af of water from its current California <br />users.162 The Department of the Interior (001) also recently <br />completed a settlement with the San Luis Rey Band, providing <br />them with a portion of the water conserved from lining the All- <br />American Canal. 163. <br />In the Upper Basin, a number of Indian water rights claims <br />have also recently settled and tribal consumptive use is expected <br />to more than. double by 2050 -. from .35 maf in 2000 to .71 <br />maf.l64Final amendments to the Ute Tribes Settlement Act are <br />currently pending before Congress, and in the past year, <br />Congress also approved a small settlement with the Shivwits <br />Tribe in Utah,165 . <br />With recogniZed rights to a sizeable fraction of the total water <br />in the system, tribal claims have the potential to significantly <br />alter the distribution of water - a result that not all water users <br />oppose. Some municipal users support tribal water marketing <br />claims, hoping for an increase in municipal access to water <br />previously dedicated to irrigation. 166 <br /> <br />160. See id. <br />161. See id <br />162. See also Laurie Asseo, Tribe Gets Chance to Prove Water Claim, THE ORANGE <br />COUNlY REG.. June 20, 2000, at A5. See generally Arizona v. California, 530 U.S. 392 <br />(2000): . <br />163. See Babbitt, supra note 159. <br />164. See FINAL EIS, supra note 71, at AttachmentQ. <br />165. See Babbitt, supra note 159. <br />166. An excellent example is the aforementioned CAP settlement that is now <br />pending before Congress. See. supra text accompanying note 160. Perhaps the most <br />intriguing aspect of the Settlements Act is that it authorizes the reimbursement <br />money paid annually by CAWCD to be deposited into the Lower Colorado River Basin <br />Development Fund. See !:1 108. These funds may be used "without further <br />appropriation" to pay the costs associated with delivering CAP water to the tribes, to <br />fund the settlement with the Gila River Indian Community, and to construct <br />distribution systems in order for tribes to receive CAP water. Id This arrangement, if <br />approved by Congress, would provide the infrastructure so that the tribes could use <br />CAP water. It also provides self-funding for these projects. Over the next several <br />decades, hundreds of millions of dollars would flow to the fund to be spent without <br />annual congressional appropriations. While the settlement purports to give nearly <br />half of all CAP water to the tribes, much of this water may not remain in tribal hands <br />for long. Instead, it would be sold back to non-Indian water users. The settlement <br />legislation thus closely resembles a sort of shell game - the effect of which will be to <br />pass much of the CAP user cost of the $4 billion project back to the federal <br />