Unsettled waters: Navajo water deal advances in basin, hits funding wall in Congress
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
Halls Crossing Marina and Lake Powell are seen from the Bullfrog area near Stanton Creek in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah.
NAGEEZI, N.M.
Arizona, California and Nevada could lose as much as 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water a year under a new federal plan for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
The Navajo Nation would not face those cuts. It could even gain ground.
Whether it gains anything depends on Congress, and in Washington, the fund for Indian water settlements is empty.
An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two or three homes for a year.
The Bureau of Reclamation released the plan July 31, setting broad limits through 2036 and leaving detailed rules for later, usually two years at a time. The cuts fall on the Lower Basin: Arizona, California and Nevada, the states that draw from Lake Mead.
Most of the water the Nation stands to gain from its pending water rights settlement sits in the Upper Basin: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The Nation holds land and water rights in both halves of the river.
To read the full article, please see the Aug. 6, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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