Supreme Court ruling complicates Navajo Nation's fight for more water

FILE - Phillip Yazzie waits for a water drum in the back of his pickup truck to be filled in Teesto, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation, on Feb. 11, 2021. The Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in a dispute involving water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. States that draw water from the river Arizona, Nevada and Colorado and water districts in California had urged the court to decide for them, and that's what the justices did in a 5-4 ruling.

Two decades after the Navajo Nation sued the federal government to force them to act, their frustrating, meandering journey through the federal courts ended with the 5-4 decision authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying an“contains no language imposing a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe.”

As a result of the ruling, if the Navajo Nation wants access to water from the lower Colorado River, Congress must act or the tribe needs to ask the Supreme Court to reopen a prior case that allocated water between states, said attorney Rita McGuire, who represented southwestern states that opposed the tribe.Gorsuch found one"silver lining," writing that the majority did agree that the Navajo Nation may be able to assert such a claim.

Kavanaugh said Congress could still help the Navajo Nation. Congress has allocated billions to help tribes secure water rights and build infrastructure to reliably deliver clean water to their people. And supplying water across the Navajo reservation is particularly challenging because of its arid environment and the great distances involved — it’s the largest in the U.S. at 27,000 square-miles — an area larger than West Virginia.from the San Juan River in New Mexico and Utah.

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