WSPC04835

• File Number: 8064
• Description: Federal Water Rights - Colorado Indian Negotiations
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 1/1/3000
• Author: Unknown
• Title: The Agreement in Principle, The Fulfillment of a National Obligation
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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THE AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE
The Fulfillment Of A National Obligation

The Agreement in Principle, negotiated and agreed to the Ute
Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Indian Tribes, the State of
Colorado and a large number of Colorado and New Mexico water
entities culminates what can fairly be characterized as a one
hundred year national commitment to protect and preserve both the
Ute Indian homelands in the Upper Colorado Basin and the
resources of the Colorado River.

The national commitment to the Ute Indians emerges from a
series of federal laws -- the Treaty of October 7, 1863, the
Treaty of March 2, 1868 and the Act of February 20, 1895. Each
of these Congressional enactments was designed to protect and
preserve a portion of the lands and waters of the Upper Colorado
River basin for a permanent homeland for the Ute Indian people.
This one hundred year national commitment to provide a permanent
homeland to the Ute Indians containing ample water resources has
been mirrored by a more recent national commitment to the Tribes
and to the non-Indian citizens of Colorado and New Mexico to
protect the Upper Basin share of Colorado River water.

The principal water resource project which is targeted in
the Agreement in Principle -- the Animas La Plata Project -- was
specifically identified by Congress in 1968 as a subject of
special attention and the object of a special national
Obligation. In enacting the Colorado River Basin Project Act of
1968, 43 U.S.C. 9 6l(a)(1), Congress directed the Secretary of
the Interior to "proceed as nearly as practicable with the
construction of the Animas-La Plata .... project concurrently
with the Central Arizona Project, to the end that such project(s)
shall be completed not later than the date of the first delivery
of water from the Central Arizona Project." The 1968 legislation
was specifically designed to implement the allocation of water
between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin states which was
negotiated in the 1922 Colorado River Compact. See Arizona v.
California, 373 U.S. 546, 553 (1963).

The 1968 mandate of Congress carried forth what has become a
significant national commitment to harness the waters of the
Colorado River for the benefit of all Western citizens. The
United States Supreme Court made the following observations in
the 1963 decision in Arizona v. California.

The prospect that the United States would undertake to build
as a national project the necessary works to control floods
and store river water for irrigation was apparently a
welcome one for the basin States. But it brought to life
strong fears in the northern basin States that additional
waters made available by the storage and canal projects
might be gobbled up in perpetuity by faster growing lower