Southwest
3 Native American tribes seeking rights to Colorado River water in $5B settlement
A proposed water rights settlement for three Native American tribes that carries a price tag larger than any such agreement enacted by Congress took a significant step forward late Monday with introduction in the Navajo Nation Council.
The Navajo Nation has one of the largest single outstanding claims in the Colorado River basin and will vote soon on the measure in a special session. It’s the first of many approvals — ending with Congress — that’s needed to finalize the deal.
Climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and demands on the river like those that have allowed Phoenix, Las Vegas and other desert cities to thrive pushed the tribes into settlement talks. The Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes are hoping to close the deal quickly under a Democratic administration in Arizona and with Joe Biden as president.
PLUMBING PROBLEM AT GLEN CANYON DAM THREATENS WATER SUPPLY OF COLORADO RIVER SYSTEM
A landmark 1922 agreement divided the Colorado River basin water among seven western states but left out tribes. The tribes are seeking water from a mix of sources: the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River, aquifers and washes on tribal lands in northeastern Arizona.
Nearly one-third of homes on the Navajo Nation, which stretches across 27,000 square miles of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, don’t have running water. Many homes on Hopi are similarly situated.
San Juan Southern Paiute will vote on the settlement within weeks, tribal President Robbin Preston Jr. said in an email. Along with guaranteed water deliveries, the tribe is asking Congress to approve a treaty it signed with the Navajo Nation in 2000 to establish an 8.4 square-mile reservation within the Navajo reservation.
A windmill draws water for livestock in Leupp, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation on March 9, 2024. A proposed water rights settlement for three Native American tribes that carries a price tag larger than any such agreement enacted by Congress took a significant step forward late on May 13, with introduction in the Navajo Nation Council. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca)
“We will have economic opportunities that our tribal members have never seen before, and which will give hope and pride to our people,” Preston said.
Without a settlement, the tribes would be at the mercy of courts. Already, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government is not bound by treaties with the Navajo Nation to secure water for the tribe. Navajo has the largest land base of any of the 574 federally recognized tribes and is second in population with more than 400,000 citizens.
A separate case that has played out over decades in Arizona over the Little Colorado River basin likely will result in far less water than the Navajo Nation says it needs because the tribe has to prove it has historically used the water. That’s hard to do when the tribe hasn’t had access to much of it, Navajo Attorney General Ethel Branch said.
Congress has enacted nearly three dozen tribal water rights settlements across the U.S. since 1978. Federal negotiation teams are working on another 22 settlements involving 34 tribes in nine states, the Interior Department said.
The costliest one enacted by Congress was for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana at $1.9 billion. The Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes are seeking more than $5 billion in their settlement.
About $1.75 billion of that would fund a pipeline from Lake Powell, one of the two largest reservoirs in the Colorado River system, on the Arizona-Utah border. The settlement would require the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to complete it by the end of 2040.
From there, water would be delivered to dozens of tribal communities in remote areas.
“Whatever funding we walk away with is funding we don’t otherwise have,” Branch said. “It will be a challenge.”
The Navajo Nation has settled its claims to the Colorado River basin in New Mexico and Utah. It’s separately pursuing two other much smaller settlements in New Mexico.
Arizona — situated in the Colorado River’s Lower Basin with California, Nevada and Mexico — is unique in that it also has an allocation in the Upper Basin. Under the settlement terms, Navajo and Hopi would get about 47,000 acre-feet in the Upper Basin — nearly the entire amount that was set aside for use at the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant that shut down in late 2019. Navajo previously had agreed not to seek that water for the 50 years prior to 2019.
The proposal also includes a combined 9,500 acre-feet per year of water from the Colorado River’s Lower Basin for Navajo and Hopi. Navajo additionally would have the right to draw 40,780 acre-feet from the Little Colorado River — about one-third of what’s estimated to reach the reservation annually.
An acre-foot of water is roughly enough to serve two to three U.S. households annually.
Arizona, in turn, gets certainty in the amount of water available throughout the state as it’s forced to cut back as the overall supply diminishes. Navajo and Hopi, like other Arizona tribes, could be part of that solution if they secure the right to lease water within the state that could be delivered through a canal system that already serves metropolitan Tucson and Phoenix.
The two tribes came close to reaching a pact to settle water rights in Arizona in 2012, but the tentative deal fell through. This time around, Navajo officials launched a public education campaign.
They held lengthy community meetings with translations in Navajo — “tó bee há haz’ a” meaning “water right,” for example — and described water’s role in the tribe’s creation story and in ceremonies. They explained complicated water law, past attempts to settle and what’s at stake if the settlement fails.
In Leupp, the audience mostly asked about immediate needs: fixing the electricity on the water pump, improving roads and drilling wells.
Marlene Yazzie recalled her mother hitchhiking more than 100 miles to pressure tribal officials for electricity and water — which never came. Yazzie herself relies on water hauled to her home in nearby Birdsprings for washing, drinking and for her livestock.
“How many more years do we have to wait?” she asked.
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Los Angeles, Ca
L.A. Jewish institution among targets of foiled terrorist attack, U.S. officials say
A Jewish institution in Los Angeles was among the locations targeted in a recently foiled terrorism plot, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton announced this week.
The thwarted terrorist attacks were the result of the recent arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and senior member of Kata’ib Hizballah, U.S. officials said.
“Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a commander for the terrorist organization, Kata’ib Hizballah, faces serious charges for his role in numerous attacks against U.S. interests across the globe, including his efforts to kill on U.S. soil,” Clayton said. “As alleged, for years, Al-Saadi committed himself to furthering the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah and the IRGC, two terrorist organizations dedicated to harming the United States and its allies.”
Al-Saadi recently attempted to carry out attacks in the U.S., officials said, including attacks at Jewish cultural places of interest in New York, Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Ariz.
“Al-Saadi attempted to disrupt American society through intimidation and violence,” a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office reads. “… Those who engage in or support terrorism against Americans and on U.S. soil should take note: the whole of the federal government is committed to dismantling terrorist organizations and bringing their members to justice.”
In a three-month period, Al-Saadi allegedly directed 18 terrorist attacks throughout Europe, including bombings, arson, and assaults targeting American citizens and points of interest. Prior to his arrest, national security officials say he was planning similar attacks on U.S. soil. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said that Al-Saadi “presented a serious threat to our national security.”
The European attacks included the bombing of the Bank of New York Mellon, an American bank, in Amsterdam on March 15. On April 29, two Jewish men, one of whom was a dual U.S.-British citizen, were stabbed and seriously injured in London.
In 2020, Al-Saadi took to social media, calling for others to attack and kill Americans in retribution for the deaths of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, U.S. officials said. In more recent months, Al-Saadi allegedly used social media to encourage the killing of Americans and Jews to further the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“In or about February 2026, for example, AL-SAADI posted on one of his social media accounts a message in Arabic, which read in part, ‘Do not abandon the blood of your Imam of the time, oh Shiites of Iraq. Kill everyone who supports America and Israel. Do not leave any of them remaining. Civil and military targets, as well as voices of discord, kill them everywhere.’” U.S. officials said.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch confirmed that one of the U.S. targets was a Manhattan synagogue. On April 3, Al-Saadi allegedly spoke to an undercover law enforcement officer whom Al-Saadi believed could carry out attacks in the U.S. That same day, Al-Saadi allegedly texted the undercover officers photographs and maps showing the exact location of a prominent Jewish synagogue in New York City.
Officials have not said what specific locations in L.A. and Arizona were targeted by the terrorist group.
Al-Saadi now faces numerous charges for these crimes in U.S. court. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
The case is under investigation by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is comprised of investigators and analysts from the FBI, the NYPD, the FBI Washington Field Office, Counterterrorism Division, and more than 50 other federal, state, and local agencies. Investigators also received help from the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section, the Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
A man armed with a knife was shot by L.A. police officers responding to an assault with a deadly weapon call overnight, authorities said.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, officers with the Hollenbeck Division responded to an apartment complex in the 3000 block of Glenn Avenue in Boyle Heights at 1:45 a.m. Saturday after callers reported a male suspect was armed with a knife and had just assaulted someone in the complex.
Arriving officers found the suspect in front of the residence, but he did not comply with officers’ commands to drop the weapon. He then advanced toward the officers and an officer-involved shooting occurred, LAPD confirmed.
“The suspect was struck by gunfire and remained non-compliant,” the LAPD Public Information Officer said on X early Saturday morning. “Officers deployed a 40mm foam round and ultimately took the suspect into custody.”
Video obtained by KTLA shows the man being loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital; officials said he was transported in stable condition, adding that his knife was recovered at the scene and booked as evidence.
No officers or community members were injured during the incident. The man’s name was not released.
Dangerous rip currents and high surf are forecast for Los Angeles County beaches, including the Malibu Coast this weekend.
The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous beach statement, warning of the potentially deadly beach conditions. The dangerous conditions are forecast to last from Saturday evening to Monday morning.
“There is an increased risk of ocean drowning,” the NWS forecast reads. “Rip currents can pull swimmers and surfers out to sea. Waves can wash people off beaches and rocks, and capsize small boats nearshore.”
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A guide to surviving rip currents from the National Weather Service (NWS)
Minor Beach erosion and coastal flooding is possible through the weekend. The flooding is most likely to occur during evening high tides from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Beachgoers are advised to stay out of the water and remain near lifeguard towers. Jetties and tidepools are also especially dangerous during the weekend forecast.
“Rock jetties can be deadly in such conditions, stay off the rocks,” the NWS forecast reads.
Similar hazardous beach conditions are also in the forecast for Santa Barbara County. A high surf advisory is also in effect for Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties this weekend, where 10 to 15-foot waves will be possible.
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