9367 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

assets and the people assets. The Indian culture and the current
tribal policies attempt to maximize both types of assets. We
encourage our people to be healthy, restrict their families, and to
develop their minds. We encourage our people to work together for our
mutual benefit. When it comes to natural assets we also attempt to
utilize those to our mutual benefit. The Ute Mountain Ute reservation
has thousands of acres of land, that can be cultivated with an ample
water supply. The reservation has a temperate climate and an ample
growing season. The reservation also contains substantial oil and gas
resources. Over time these oil and gas resources will be depleted.
In contrast, our lands, our temperate climate and our water supplies
are a renewable resource. It is those that we must look to for the
development of our economic future. When we develop those resources
we are also careful to preserve them as well.
Our environment is unique and very sacred to us. All of our
natural resources are sacred, but perhaps water resources are the most
significant and the most sacred to the Native American, and the Ute
Mountain Ute people. Thanks to the assistance of United States and
particularly the state of Colorado, we are now receiving, for the
first time in our history, domestic water in the Towaoc pipe line.
This water is delivered from the Dolores Project, and treated at a
facility near Cortez. In addition the tribe is currently, through its
construction corporation, building the $32 million dollar canal to
deliver agriculture water also from the Dolores Project. This water,
during the next three or four years, will be used to cultivate 7,500
acres of tribal land. These lands are fertile. They have a temperate
growing season, and we feel that with good management this tribal
cultivation will provide long term economic benefits to our tribe.
The tribe has other water supplies not secured by the decree of
1986 Colorado-Ute water right settlement agreement. These additional
water supplies are from current stream flows and also from allocations
from Animas-La Plata project. The Animas-La Plata project is now
under planning and initial construction, and baring some of the
environmental issues that we have, we hope that we will see it as a
reality. The full extent of these additional water supplies cannot
be used profitably by the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in the near
future. Therefore, we feel that those additional supplies are for
leasing consideration. One note I would like to make is that under
the tribal partnership that we had formulated, not all the tribes are
in the position to lease water. Only those that have quantified water
would be the ones that would actually be considering leasing or
marketing some of that water. There are other tribes in the
partnership that are not that far along. After negotiating with our
lawyers we felt we needed to expand and to ensure that all of the
other tribes would be considered in this partnership. So, it is not
all of us who are considering marketing our water. The Southern Ute
and the Ute Mountain Ute are definitely considering that possibility.
Some of the others maybe looking at that option in the future.
To continue, Colorado River water leasing is consistent with the
Law of the River and the Commerce clause. The availability of water
rights for leasing is fully consistent with the tribes continuing need
to develop economic independence from its natural resources. The
availability for leasing is also, in my opinion, perfectly consistent
with their creation as federal reserve water rights. These federal

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