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<br />Appendlx V <br />The NavaJo Indian Irrigation Projeet and Its <br />Re1atioDShip to the Anlmas.La Plata Projeet <br /> <br />based on the results of the 7-year research program as stipulated in the . . . <br />Animas-La Plata Biological Opinion." Interior officials told us that the <br />Service allowed water depletions under the 1991 alternative to the <br />Animas-La Plata project, rather than allowing them for NllP, because the <br />Bureau's consultation on the Animas-La Plata project was begun and <br />completed earlier than BlA'S consultation on NlIP.2 <br /> <br />In December 1990, when the Bureau was consulting with the Service on <br />the Animas-La Plata project, the Solicitor for Interior's Southwest Region <br />stated in a briefing paper that a decision to allow water depletions for the <br />Animas-La Plata project, rather than NlIP, jeopardized the future of NllP. <br />Similarly, in a December 1990 memorandwn to the Secretary of the <br />Interior, the then-Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs questioned <br />whether the rights of the Navajo Nation were being adequately considered <br />In January 1994, the then-President of the Navajo Nation and a tribal <br />attorney told us that the tribe's position was that the Bureau's use of water <br />from the Navajo Reservoir for the alternative to the Animas-La Plata <br />project threatened the tribe's claim to water in the reservoir under the <br />1962 congressional authorization of NllP and the tribe's other rights to <br />water in the San Juan River. <br /> <br />2Consultation on the Animas-La Plata project was most-recently initiated in Februazy 1900 and <br />completed when the Service issued its final biological opinion on October 26, 1991. <br /> <br />Page 24 <br /> <br />GAOIRCED-96-1 Animao-La Plata Projeet <br />