‘This is life’
After water rights victory, Aneth weighs what comes next
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
A community member speaks during a meeting in Aneth, Utah, where residents gathered to learn about the Navajo Utah Water Rights Settlement and discuss how the water allocation could be used to serve homes, livestock and future development in Utah Navajo communities.
ANETH, Utah
In a chapter house on the Utah portion of the Navajo Nation, where the San Juan River cuts through red desert on its way toward the Colorado River, a small group of mostly elderly community members gathered on a Saturday morning to confront a question with consequences far beyond the meeting room: now that their water rights have been secured, how do they turn that legal victory into water for homes, livestock, farms and future generations?
The meeting at the Aneth Chapter House brought together local residents, chapter officials, members of the nonprofit C 4 Ever Green and a team from the University of Utah’s environmental justice clinic. Their goal was not only to explain the Navajo-Utah Water Rights Settlement, but to begin the harder work of deciding how the water should be used and what kind of infrastructure should be built in a region where many families still haul water and where development pressures are rising even as the Colorado River Basin grows hotter and drier.
To read the full article, please see the March 12, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow