Navajo water rights settlement on the San Juan Basin

Yesterday - Farmington, New Mexico Daily Times editorial on the proposed Navajo water rights settlement on the San Juan Basin.

Today -

The 20th Navajo Nation Council passed, in an historic 62-18 vote Wednesday, the proposed Navajo water rights settlement on the San Juan Basin. It was the first time in 136 years that the Navajo Nation, which spans Arizona, Utah and New Mexico in the Four Corners, had sought its water rights.

“This is as near an important document as the (U.S.-Navajo) Treaty of 1868 because of the water issues,” Delegate Wallace Charley of Shiprock said.

The delegates’ affirmative vote opened the flood gates for the Navajo government to gain eventual control of 56 percent of the basin’s diverted water supply — totaling 606,040 acre-feet of diverted water annually.