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U O O 1 n old tribal legend holds that a Ute chief once stood in the San Juan Mountains and pro- claimed that all lands touched by the water belonged to his people. And although the Utes would never be able reclaim their once vast homeland touched by these waters, many genera- tions later in the 1990s, the Ute Mountain Utes did finally succeed in bringing irri- gated agriculture and a clean, reliable source of domestic water to their reser- vation in southwestern Colorado. That water was a long time coming. The Ute Mountain Utes, also known as the Weeminuche or "people who keep the old ways," are one of seven individual bands within the Ute Nation. Their reser- vation covers a total of some 933 square miles primarily in Colorado, with smaller portions in New Mexico and Utah. For more than a century the tribe hauled drinking water by wagon and later by truck from Cortez to Towaoc —the only tribal town —a 30 -mile roundtrip. In this desert and cactus landscape, grow- ing crops without irrigation was not even ��auntuin�� Y dale e Ciwel6 A0 By Dan MacArthur considered. But soon it became clear that reliable water supplies were the lynch pin to the future success and expansion of the tribe. They needed water not only to supply their homes with clean drink- ing water, but for industry, commerce, and —if they could prevail —to grow food for their families and the region. It was then, some 30 years ago, that the Utes decided to undertake the formidable chal- lenge of asserting their federal reserved water rights claim. The tribe pressed its claim under the Winters Doctrine, established by a 1908 Supreme Court ruling that the federal gov- ernment reserved water rights "by implica- tion" on behalf of the tribes dating back to the creation of their reservations. The Ute Mountain Utes' claim dated back to 1868. As in many federal reserved right cases, the problem arises that the reserved water rights are then senior to those of many non- Indian irrigators. This creates a potentially explosive scenario whereby very senior water rights could potentially be "called out" by the reserved Indian rights. In particular, the Utes challenged the amount of water being withdrawn from the Mancos River by the federally -fund- ed Jackson Project. The Mancos River is a major tributary flowing southwest from the La Plata Mountains through the Mancos Valley between Cortez and Durango. Jackson Project diversions by non - Indian ranchers, they argued, were drastically depleting river flows through the reservation. Many were convinced if successful in their challenge, the Ute Mountain Utes and other area tribes could dry up almost all non - Indian uses of water in south- western Colorado. "They certainly had a claim on the Mancos River," acknowl- edges John Porter, former manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District for more than two decades. "Everybody conceded they could probably dry up the Mancos Valley." Finally, it was the federal government that stepped forward to help fulfill its obligation to the tribe. Authorized under the Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1968, the Dolores Project — involving construction of McPhee dam and reser- voir —was proposed in part to resolve the Utes' water claims, and to provide water for non - Indian irrigation, municipalities, and fish and wildlife. Local voters over- whelmingly approved the repayment con- tract for the project in 1977, just before it was placed on a White House "hit list" for elimination. One of the only reasons the multi - purpose project eventually survived many contend, was because of the impor- � v ver} positrve'about t e Farm aril RancR nterprise," says Ernesl House fot rarer' tiibtrl s ' r ,f , To its CYM4. the t>ibe won second- liigliest lionok in tiie nation•anst year -_ r ats' Ute� iyee cp n. "2J t tel s me we're doing, sa V11in� r igh' t " sbys Hoils