Chapter 4 NAVAJO GALLUP WATER SUPPLY PROJECT

• Jurisdiction: United States

Water Law Institute
Chapter 4

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NAVAJO GALLUP WATER SUPPLY PROJECT
Bidtah N. Becker Navajo Tribal Utility Authority Santa Fe, NM

BIDTAH BECKER is an Associate Attorney for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and the immediate past Director of the Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources from 2015 to January 2019. For more than a decade prior, she served as an attorney for the Nation focusing on water rights and natural resources. She also serves on the Leadership Team for the Water and Tribes Initiative in the Colorado River Basin, on the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, and on the Navajo Nation Water Rights Commission. Equally passionate about supporting artists, she serves as a Trustee for the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture (IAIA). She is a member of the Nation and lives on the Navajo Nation in Fort Defiance with her husband and two school age children.

The Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project (NGWSP or Project) is a billion dollar plus project designed to provide a long-term water supply of domestic, municipal, and industrial water to the Navajo Nation in Northwest New Mexico and a small portion of Northeast Arizona, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and the City of Gallup.¹ In 2009, the United States Congress authorized the funding and construction of the Project as part of the Navajo Nation's settlement of its water rights to the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico. The historical development of this Project, the authorization of it, the construction of it, and the aspects of the Project that are lacking reflect the ever-developing water policy and law of the American Southwest.

DETAILS

The Project is designed to serve an area about the size of New Jersey. The "Project Participants" are the Navajo Nation, the City of Gallup, and the Jicarilla Apache Nation. The Project will eventually divert a total of 37,376 acre-feet of water annually from the San Juan River Basin and deplete 35,893 acre-feet of water. This water diversion and depletion is based on a 2040 projected population of 250,000 people with a demand rate of 160 gallons per capita per day. That population breaks down to 203,000 people in 43 Navajo Nation Chapters, 1,300 people in the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and 47,000 people in the City of Gallup. The water will be conveyed through approximately 280 miles of pipeline, several pumping plants, and two water treatment plants.²

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ORIGIN STORY

It is reported this Project was first proposed in the 1950s by the famed and often revered New Mexico State Engineer Steve Reynolds. It began as an idea to deliver water from the water rich San Juan River to water thirsty Gallup for domestic and municipal purposes through a single pipeline. Likely New Mexico was most interested in putting its Colorado River Basin allocation to use as two other projects were also being envisioned: the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and the San Juan Chama Project.³

I began to believe this origin story as true when in the early 2000s I would visit Navajo communities to discuss the then proposed settlement of the Nation's water rights to the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico. I was working for the Navajo Nation Department of Justice and together with a team of dedicated Navajo Nation employees from the Department of Water Resources, we would explain that the centerpiece of the settlement was (and continues to be today) the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project (NGWSP). During those several community meetings, several Navajo elders would comment that they had been hearing about the project since the 1950s. As such, they would only believe that it be built once it was built. I hope these elders have lived to see the NGWSP become a reality.

NGWSP is the centerpiece of the Nation's settlement of its water rights to the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico because like many tribal nations, the Navajo Nation has not enjoyed the same pace of water development as its non-Indian neighbors.⁴ Lack of water development effects every aspect of life, from public health to economic development. The Navajo Nation struggles with persistently high unemployment rates, and it is estimated that a Navajo Nation home is 67 times more likely than other

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American homes to live without access to running water.⁵ This lack of development and access contributed to the skepticism that I regularly heard as a young attorney entering the field in the early 2000s.

Today the Project is designed to have two laterals or pipelines: the Cutter Lateral that roughly follows Highway 550 from Huerfano Chapter to the Jicarilla Apache Nation and branches off from there and the San Juan Lateral that roughly follows Highway 491 from the San Juan River to Gallup and branches off from there. The Cutter Lateral, the smaller of the two laterals, began delivering water to eight Chapters on the Navajo Nation in October of 2020, during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.

History of Domestic Water Development on the Navajo Nation

Understanding domestic water development on the Navajo Nation is critical to understand the approach of including municipal water development in water settlements.⁶ The Navajo Tribal Council (today Navajo Nation Council) created the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority in 1959.⁷ There are two reported origin stories for NTUA. In the Navajo Nation code, it is reported that the Utility was created to deliver electricity to Shiprock.⁸ The back story is that the federal government was constructing a school in Shiprock, and the local electric cooperative reportedly would not come onto the Reservation to provide electricity. The other origin story is that...