WSPC02585

• File Number: 8064
• Description: Indian Water Rights
• State: CO
• Basin: San Juan/Dolores
• Water Division: 7
• Date: 3/17/1997
• Author: Todd M Olinger
• Title: Summary of Indian Water 1997
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

Ronnie Lupe20

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Indian Warer-1997: Trends and Directions in Federal Water Policy

Comments of The Chairman of The White Mountain Apache
Tribal Council

On my reservation is a river, the East Fort River, that is very big right now.
It flows all summer and winter. At this time of the year, with the winter
runoff, it's very big, but in the summertime it's beautiful and many non-
Indians fish on that stream. Many years ago, I happened to observe an
incident there.

There were some non-Indians fishing. They were camped up and down the
stream, like they normally do when they come to visit us on our reservation.
There were several fishing quite close to one another, and here comes a
bunch of Apache kids, three young kids, maybe about eight years old, maybe
ten years old.

They had a bunch of cans in their hands. The kid up on the upper river
throws these cans in the river and the lower kids, when the rapid comes,
these cans would come by and they would throw rocks at them. This
extremely annoyed the fishermen, but the kids, they continued to do that.

So one of the fishermen came up to me and said, "Can't you stop these kids
from doing that? I'm fishing that they are dirtying the water." I said to the
gentleman, "Those kids you're talking about own the water. They own the
water. They own the river." He said, "I don't care if they own it, but I
bought a permit to fish here."

And I said, "You and I have a different view. You are an adult and I am an
adult, also. To those kids, those cans that are floating by are monsters.
They might be a submarine, they might be a battleship they are trying to
sink. They are having a good time with their own environment." And he
laughed and said, "Oh, so that is what is going on."

Sometimes we don't know what is going on in the Indian mind, but that was
what was happening there. That's the first time I ever said to somebody,
some years ago, "Those Apache kids, those youngsters, own the river, own
the water."

The Apache way is to bless ourselves with water. It's very sacred to all of the
American Indians across the country. We spread water in four different
directions. There's a story behind doing that. It connects with all the

20 Chairman, White Mountain Apache Tribe Council, White River, Arizona.

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