Hualapai Tribe

President Joe Biden has approved three bills that will improve access to water for three tribes in Arizona amid an unrelenting drought.

Three bills that would improve access to water for some tribes in Arizona amid an unrelenting drought are now poised for President Joe Biden’s desk.

The Navajo Transitional Energy Company has partnered with an Australian-owned mining company to develop a proposed open-pit lithium mining operation in western Arizona.

The Utah agave is also known as the century plant. But it doesn’t really take a century for this blue-green succulent to send up a long stalk and bloom—more like forty years. Just before it blooms, it’s full of sugars. That’s the perfect time to harvest its heart, a culinary tradition among the Hualapai people going back thousands of years.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved bills granting water rights to the Hualapai, letting the Colorado River Indian Tribes lease their water and adding funding and extending the deadline for review of a water system for the White Mountain Apache.

Hualapai tribal land in northwestern Arizona borders 100 miles of the Colorado River, but the tribe can't draw from it.

A bill under consideration by Congress would ratify the water rights of the Hualapai Tribe in Arizona. If passed, it would give the tribe access to four thousand acre-feet of water annually; and also fund a pipeline to communities and the Skywalk in Grand Canyon West. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with tribal chairman Damon Clarke about the importance of the long-awaited agreement.

The newly proposed Hualapai Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2022 would allow water rights to the Colorado, Verde and Bill Williams rivers and would fund infrastructure to deliver about 4,000 acre-feet of water annually to the tribe.

Hualapai leaders are urging the Senate to approve a water plan that would give the tribe water rights to local rivers as their wells fail under the stress of the continuing drought.

Congress will consider a bill finalizing a water rights settlement for the Hualapai Tribe in Arizona. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports, it will resolve the tribe’s longstanding claims to the Colorado, Bill Williams, and Verde rivers.