![]() Gorsuch said one “silver lining” of the case may be that his colleagues in the majority recognized that the tribe may still be able to “assert the interests they claim in water rights litigation, including by seeking to intervene in cases that affect their claimed interests.” The Navajo have waited patiently for someone, anyone, to help them, only to be told (repeatedly) that they have been standing in the wrong line and must try another.” “To date, their efforts to find out what water rights the United States holds for them have produced an experience familiar to any American who has spent time at the Department of Motor Vehicles. “Where do the Navajo go from here?” he wrote. In a dissent, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that he would have allowed the case to go forward and he characterized the Navajo’s position as a “simple ask.” The Supreme Court’s decision reverses that ruling from the appeals court. It is important, he said, for courts to leave “to Congress and the President the responsibility to enact appropriations laws and to otherwise update federal law as they see fit in light of the competing contemporary needs for water.”Ī federal trial court initially dismissed the lawsuit, but an appeals court allowed it to go forward. “Allocating water in the arid regions of the American West is often a zero-sum situation,” he wrote. Kavanaugh acknowledged that water issues are difficult ones. Writing for a majority made up of conservative justices, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that “the Navajos contend that the treaty requires the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Navajos - for example, by assessing the Tribe’s water needs, developing a plan to secure the needed water, and potentially building pipelines, pumps, wells, or other water infrastructure.”īut, Kavanaugh said, “In light of the treaty’s text and history, we conclude that the treaty does not require the United States to take those affirmative steps.” In 2003 the tribe sued the federal government, arguing it had failed to consider or protect the Navajo Nation’s water rights to the lower portion of the Colorado River. The second treaty established the reservation as the tribe’s “permanent home” - a promise the Navajo Nation says includes a sufficient supply of water. The facts of the case go back to treaties that the tribe and the federal government signed in 18. Lawyers for the Navajo Nation had characterized the tribe’s request as modest, saying they simply were seeking an assessment of the tribe’s water needs and a plan to meet them. ![]() The Biden administration had said that if the court were to come down in favor of the Navajo Nation, the federal government could face lawsuits from many other tribes. Colorado had argued that siding with the Navajo Nation would undermine existing agreements and disrupt the management of the river. States that draw water from the river - Arizona, Nevada and Colorado - and water districts in California that are also involved in the case had urged the court to decide for them, which the justices did in a 5-4 ruling. ![]() The Supreme Court ruled against the Navajo Nation on Thursday in a dispute involving water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. ![]()
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