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<br />This is discussed in Part A.3, below. <br /> <br />It is a severe point of contention for the Navajo Nation that 37 years after NIIP authorization and <br />23 years after the Secretary ofthe Interior signed a contract for the use of water through NIIP <br />facilities in 1976, construction ofNIIP is still not complete. Meanwhile, the SJCP began <br />operating in 1972. The City of Albuquerque, the principal beneficiary of the SJCP with a <br />contract of 48,200 acre-feet/year, approximately half of the project's yield, began utilizing this <br />project water only a few years ago. The City is now planning for diversion of its full contract <br />entitlement. Design changes, funding delays, and periodic challenges to the wisdom and <br />feasibility ofNIIP have plagued construction schedules. FWS officials point out that <br />implementation of the ESA since 1991 has caused little delay in NIIP's construction. <br /> <br />Congress authorized feasibility investigations for the Gallup-Navajo Project on December 15, <br />1971, under Public Law 92-199, to benefit the Navajo Nation. The current project plan would <br />provide 31,900 acre-feet of water annually from the San Juan River for municipal and industrial <br />use to 19 small communities on the Navajo Reservation; the Town of Gallup, New Mexico; the <br />Towns of Fort Defiance and Window Rock, Arizona, on the reservation; and NAPI. There has <br />been some discussion that this project might be a major component of a settlement of the Navajo <br />Nation's water rights claims in the San Juan River Basin. <br /> <br />SOUTHERN UTE INDIAN AND UTE MOUNTAIN UTE TRIBES <br /> <br />The Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwestern Colorado and the Ute Mountain Ute <br />Reservation in southwestern Colorado and New Mexico are the remnants of a 15 million-acre <br />reservation established by an 1868 Federal treaty with the Confederated Ute Bands. A portion of <br />the San Juan River and a number of perennial tributaries flow across these two Reservations, in <br />which the two Tribes hold substantial water rights. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe was awarded <br />water rights on the Pine River with a priority date of 1868 by the Federal District Court in the <br />1930 Morrison Ditch Case. After a 1976 Supreme Court decision confirmed the jurisdiction of <br />the Colorado State water court to adjudicate the Tribes' reserved water rights, the United States <br />asserted the Tribes' rights in State water court. <br /> <br />In 1985, Colorado Governor Lamm requested that the two Tribes, the United States, the States of <br />Colorado and New Mexico and various non-Indian parties commence negotiation of the <br /> <br />San Juan River from Hogback, approximately nine miles east of Shiprock, New Mexico, to about <br />17 miles northwest of Shiprock, near the Four Comers Area. Based upon the 1993 BIA crop <br />utilization report, the project consists of 555 farming plots, totaling 9,060 assessed acres. (2) <br />Fruitland Irrigation Project, the headworks for which are located two miles west of Farmington <br />on the south bank ofthe San Juan River. The project delivers irrigation water to 389 farming <br />plots totaling 3,830 acres. (3) Cudei Irrigation Project, whose headworks are located eight miles <br />west of Shiprock. The project delivers irrigation water to 53 farming plots totaling 631 acres. <br /> <br />5 <br /> <br />