BOARD01962

• Board Meeting Date: 3/22/2005
• Description: WSP Section - Navajo Nation Federal Reserved Water Right Settlement with the State of New Mexico
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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For Congress to approve the Settlement Contract, the Secretary of the Interior must determine

that sufficient water is reasonably likely to be available to New Mexico for the Navajo Nation's uses in

New Mexico under the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project and for existing and authorized Navajo and

non-Navajo uses from the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico under the apportionment made by the

Upper Colorado River Basin Compact. The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission has prepared

for the Secretary's consideration a schedule of anticipated depletions in the San Juan River Basin in

New Mexico that indicates that sufficient water would likely be available through the year 2060 to

_ _ _seMce.the.-Settlement-ContracLIhe-anticipatedrlepletionR are hased_illlJeasonabk..assumptionsuofuse

within the water rights for Navajo and non-Navajo uses in the Basin.

The rights for Navajo Nation uses on the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and the Navajo-Gallup

Water Supply Project would be sourced under contract for water from the Navajo Reservoir water

supply, and the Navajo Nation would share in shortages in the supply with the San Juan-Chama Project,

the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the Hammond Irrigation Project and other contractors. The rights for

Navajo Nation uses on the Animas-La Plata Project would be sourced under contract for water from the

Project, and the Navajo Nation would share in shortages in the Project water supply with the San Juan

Water Commission and other Project contractors. Senior direct-flow water rights in the San Juan River

Basin, including irrigation rights for Navajo and non-Navajo ditches on the San Juan River and its

tributaries, would retain their rights in a priority administration of the' river system and not share

shortages. However, the Navajo Nation under the Settlement Agreement would not call for a priority

administration of the river system to supply the Hogback-Cudei and Fruitland-Cambridge irrigation

projects; rather, when the available direct flow is insufficient to satisfY senior direct-flow water rights in

the Basin, the Nation would provide an alternate water supply for the projects from the water delivery

rights for the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project under the Settlement Contract. Although the alternate

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