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rv J '. . pI Ji....J(l l'il"~ ,', 000397 THE AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE A Settlement Of Disruptive Winters Riahts Claims The State of Colorado, the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and non-Indian water users in Southwest Colorado have agreed in the Agreement in Principle to a comprehensive and final settlement of the Ute Tribal Winters Rights claims to water in Southwest Colorado. The Agreement in Principle resolves the long standing Winters Rights claims of the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian Tribes by recognizing the Tribal rights and providing the Tribes with the physical and financial resources to put those rights to use. The settlement avoids costly and devisive litigation over the nature and extent of these Indian water rights. Further, the settlement provides benefits to all water users in Southwest Colorado and to municipal and agricultural water users in New Mexico. The parties calculate that the resolution of the Tribal claims eliminates potential losses to existing non-Indian water users in the neighborhood of $60,000,000. In addition, the settlement avoids substantial breach of trust claims by the Tribes against the United States for the unlawful diversion of Indian water, the suppression of Reservation water development, and the unlawful appropriation of Colorado River power revenues belonging to the Tribes. These claims are estimated to equal $60,000,000. Finally, the Agreement in Principle provides a reduced cost opportunity for the Untied States to satisfy the 1968 commitment of the Congress to build the Animas La Plata Project on schedule with the delivery of water under the Central Arizona Project. The United States is obligated under treaties and agreements commencing in 1863 to provide the Tribes with the water they need to insure that their Reservations become the permanent homelands envisioned at the time the Reservations were established. The Tribes and the State of Colorado do not accept the position sometimes asserted by the present administration that the federal trust responsibility to the Tribes is satisfied by merely obtaining judicial recognition of the Tribal rights at this late date, whatever the impact on non-Indian water users in Southwest Colorado, Full blown litigation over the extent of the Tribal Winters Rights claims will only lead to the decisive bitterness between Indians and non-Indians experienced in other Western states. The Tribes and their neighbors have worked long and hard to avoid that atmosphere in Southwest Colorado. In short the federal government must exercise its fiduciary responsibilities to the Tribes in a way that leaves existing goodwill intact. The Agreement in Principle accomplishes that objective. The focal point of the settlement then is the extinguishment of disruptive Winter Rights claims, the delivery of water from the Dolores Project and the Animas La Plata Project (ALP), and the establishment of Tribal development funds (in recognition of