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

reserve water rights were established to permit their full
development, and in turn benefit the Indians who were to occupy the
reservations in the west, and that is in holding with the Winters
Doctrine vs. United States in 1908 and also Arizona vs California
373US546 in 1963.
As a member of the negotiating team of the Colorado River Tribal
Partnership it will be my goal to assist my tribe as well as other
tribes in the leasing of excess water to states and cities which
require additional firm supplies. It is my goal to do so in a way
that preserves the opportunity for additional development of water
resources on my reservation. It is also my goal to do so in a way
which preserves the water rights of other users on the Colorado River.
I am convinced that if tribes in the states take a fresh look at the
supplies of water in the Colorado river, and the needs of each of
those holders of water rights they will be able, with assistance from
engineering experts, to develop models for water leasing that will
increase and not decrease the aggregate welfare and wealth of the
Colorado River system. I am convinced that the future of this region
requires such a fresh look. A regional approach combining the
interests of the Upper and Lower basins and combining the interests
of federal water rights and state allocated rights in the Colorado
River will work to our mutual benefit. To deny ourselves this
opportunity means to remain stuck in an artificial and arbitrary
understanding of documents, and concepts that are now about a half a
century old, and will, in the long run, hurt all of us.
Many scholars have looked at the Colorado River and have examined
the Law of the River. They have examined the Acts of Congress, the
compacts, the rules of water use developed by the Secretary of
Interior, the intricacies of water law of each of the various states,
the emerging quantification, and the control of Indian water rights
and have urged that the welfare of all users of the Colorado river be
increased by better communication and better coordination. I have
found that there is no expressed law or fixed policy preventing of the
leasing of Colorado river water. Indeed, some who are advocates of
water leasing contend that the ten year old decision of US Supreme
Court in Swerhasy vs. Nebraska 45US963 1982 require that states, the
Federal government, and the tribes consider the possibility and the
benefits of leasing. The Colorado River water is necessarily an
interest in an interstate resource. As such their exists significant
federal interest, not only in conservation, but also in the fair
allocation of water resources and that is also under 458US, on page
953. Under Swerhasy we have a responsibility to assure a present,
reasonable, and foreseeable supply of water for collective and
beneficial use. However, at the same time, in the absence of any
evidence of severe shortages in the Colorado River, we each have a
corresponding responsibility in the words of the Supreme Court to.
"pursue an ideal even-handedness in the regulation and management of
this resource," also under 458US, on page 956. Even-handedness means
that states may not act favorably or unreasonably for their own
citizens in the absence of a shortage of supply. That even-handedness
means that any effort to preserve water by the states must be narrowly
tailored to conform to the specific needs of the state in question.
In my judgement, as a layman, these rulings in Swerhasy make it
incumbent upon all of us, with an important interest in the waters of

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