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Friday, April 6, 2012

Arizona senators coming to steal Navajo and Hopi water rights

Arizona senators coming to steal Navajo and Hopi water rights
 4-05-2012  •  Censored News 

For Immediate Release
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Contact:
Ed Becenti
Phone: 480 313-8070
Email:
rezztone@yahoo.com

TUBA CITY, ARIZONA -- Arizona Senators Jon Kyl (R- AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) are coming to Tuba City on Thursday, April 5, 2012, to persuade Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribal leaders to give up their peoples’ aboriginal and Treaty-guaranteed priority Water Rights by accepting a “Settlement Agreement” written to benefit some of the West’s most powerful mining and energy corporations.

Senate Bill 2109 --the "Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of 2012" was introduced by Kyl and McCain on February 14, 2012, and is on a fast track to give Arizona corporations and water interests a “100th birthday present” that will close the door forever on Navajo and Hopi food and water sovereignty, security and self-reliance.

S.2109 asks the Navajo and Hopi peoples to waive their priority Water Rights to the surface waters of the Little Colorado River “from time immemorial and thereafter, forever” in return for the shallow promise of uncertain federal appropriations to supply minimal amounts of drinking water to a handful of  reservation communities.

The Bill -- and the ‘Settlement Agreement” it ratifies – do not quantify Navajo and Hopi water rights – the foundation of all other southwestern Indian Water Rights settlements to date – thereby denying the Tribes the economic market value of their water rights, and forcing them into perpetual dependence on uncertain federal funding for any water projects.

Senators Kyl and McCain know well that without Water, life is not possible. Yet, their Bill and the ‘Settlement Agreement” close the door forever to any possibility of irrigated agriculture and water conservation projects to heal and restore Navajo and Hopi watersheds (keeping sediment from filling downstream reservoirs); to grow high-value income and employment-producing livestock and crops for Navajo, Hopi and external markets; and to provide once again for healthy, diabetes- and obesity-free nutrition and active lifestyles for all future generations of Navajo and Hopi children.

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