PUB00021

• Year: 1996
• Title: The Colorado River Workshop Issues, Ideas, and Directions
• CWCB Section: Water Conservation & Drought Planning
• Author: Grand Canyon Trust
• Description: An open forum for discussion of management issues between managers, water users, and stakeholders of the Colorado River Basin
• Publications - Doc Type: Brochure

to subsurface water quantities and qualities present
within their reservation. For example, the Hopi Tribe
currently contends that Peabody's Black Mesa coal slur-
ry line is depleting the aquifers that support economi-
cally and religiously important springs on the
reservation and is in violation of their Winters rights.

The important management issue for the Colorado River
Basin is how the federal government will meet its trust
responsibility, in terms of water rights, to all 33 tribal
governments within the Basin and ensure that these
water rights are not compromised or diminished in spite
of the current over allocation of Colorado River waters.
Since neither the current Congress nor the Administra-
tion are demonstrating any intent to negotiate or address
these water rights issues, but rather seem to be insensi-
tively and myopidy focused on cutting budgets to most
Native American programs and the associated federal
agencies, the reality of developing an integrated, equi-
table management scenario for the Colorado River and
the larger basin seems overly optimistic.

Ai! demonstrated, water rights and the federal govern-
ment's trust responsibility to Native Americans is the
central issue in terms of managing the Colorado River
within the context of the greater Colorado River Basin.
However, Federal agencies, in carrying out their trust
responsibility, must also consider the direct and indi-
rect effects of their actions on the respective Native
American reservation lands located within the
Colorado River Basin area, and also on those nan-
reservation areas that are identified as exhibiting a tra-
ditional use and/or concern by the 54 Native American
tribes identified above. The identification and consid-
eration of these traditional concerns and issues, and
the fulfillment of a federal agency's trust responsibility,

is often implemented in terms of a legally mandated,
government to government, consultation process.

FEDERAL LEGISLATION IN WHICH
NATIVE AMERICANS HAVE A
CONSULTATIVE ROLE

Of the many legislations identifying a Native American
consultative role, six are specifically oriented towards
Federal undertakings that may have some form of
environmental consequence. These are considered as
one avenue through which Native American tribes can
voice their concerns and issues in the management of
the Colorado River Basin and the Colorado River.
These federal laws are briefly presented below.

National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enact-
ed by Congress in 1969, requires that federal agencies
give consideration to the environmental impacts of
their actions. Judge Skelly Wright, in a case that was
decided soon after NEPA was adopted, succinctly sum-
marized NEPA's principal objective. "NEPA, first of all,
makes environmental protection a part of the mandate
of every federal agency and department .... Perhaps the
greatest importance ofNEPA is to require.. . agencies
to consider environmental issues just as they consider
other matters within their mandates."l

Implementing regulations for NEPA (40 CFR Part
1502), issued by the Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ), specifically stipulate that the consequences of
federal undertakings on historic and cultural resources
be analyzed. These regulations encourage agencies to
coordinate preparation of environmental assessments
and impact statements with the environmental review
and consultation requirements of other federal laws

1 Calvert Cliffs' Coordinating Committee, Inc. 1f. Atomic Energy Commission, 449 E2ne 1109 (D.C. Cir, 1971).

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