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

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

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So an exception was made to the apparently fundamental diversion
requirement. Such changes were episodic, and most responded to a
utilitarian ideal that water should be used as fully as possible to produce
wealth. That was the ethic of society in the West in the mid-nineteenth
century.

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Now, in a surge of activity, western water policy is changing in a number of
ways. It is fair to say that there never have been so many changes and
complications in water policy as we are experiencing today. The policy
revolution started in the 1980s, and continues apace today.

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My message is that there is a west-wide revolution in water policy and that
tribes are part of it. Moreover, for tribal survival, tribes must understand
their role in the revolution, its potential for tribal survival and success, and
ultimately, how to take a leadership role in the trends that characterize
western water policy as we approach the twenty-first century. These trends
are:

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. conservation and efficiency in water use,
. a different future for structural solutions,
. water marketing,
. environmental protection and sustainability, and
. institutional reform.

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These trends are driven by two powerful and inexorable forces in the new
West: demographics and attitudes.

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The demographic changes in the West today are more dramatic than those in
any other period of the nation's history-even more than the big shifts that
occurred with the opening of the West, with homesteading, and with the
post-World War II boom. We have now passed the tipping point, and more
than half the population in the nation is located west of the Mississippi. The
West is, indeed, the most urbanized region in the country, with a greater
proportion of people concentrated in cities than in any other part of the
country. The movement to the cities is emptying out much of rural America.

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As these growing, thirsty cities search for new water supplies, they are
creating unprecedented pressures on rivers and streams. Furthermore, a
nation with a proud agricultural tradition now finds itself in the midst of
surpluses and is asking how to produce less food. Agricultural water is
worth comparatively much less than municipal water, and so it is being
targeted by the cities as a ripe source.

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The same streams and lakes that supply the cities are coveted as
playgrounds, They make the West what it is (or certainly what it historically
was), and westerners want to be near water in its natural state. This

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