State of unease: Colorado basin tribes without water rights
Hualapai tribal land in northwestern Arizona borders 100 miles of the Colorado River, but the tribe can't draw from it
PEACH SPRINGS, Ariz. (AP) — Garnett Querta slips on his work gloves as he shifts the big rig he’s driving into park. Within seconds, he unrolls a fire hose and opens a hydrant, sending water flowing into one of the plastic tanks on the truck’s flat bed.
His timer is set for 5 minutes, 20 seconds — when the tank will be full and he’ll turn to the second one.
The water pulled from the ground here will be piped dozens of miles across rugged landscape to serve the roughly 700,000 tourists a year who visit the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai reservation in northwestern Arizona — an operation that is the tribe's main source of revenue.
Despite the Colorado River bordering more than 100 miles of Hualapai land in the canyon, the tribe can't draw from it. Native American tribes in the Colorado River basin have inherent rights to the water, but the amount and access for a dozen tribes hasn't been fully resolved, not for decades.
