Navajo Nation Fights for Water Rights & Access to Colorado River as West Battles Historic Drought

At the U.N. Water Development Conference, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland delivered the U.S. statement and called for Indigenous governance of shared waters, underscoring the importance of Indigenous-led conservation in addressing the climate and drought crises. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last Monday on whether to allow the Navajo Nation to argue the federal government must address the Native American tribe’s water rights. For more, we are joined in Fort Defiance, Arizona, by Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, water management branch, covering 27,000 square miles of reservation land that straddles New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, much of which borders the Colorado River. She talks about what must be done to address the ongoing lack of access to water there now as the west battles a historic drought.

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