Native American tribes came together to secure their rights to the water of the Colorado River. Four states are blocking the agreement.

A deal to bring Colorado River water to Native American communities in northern Arizona, where a third of homes don’t have running water, is being blocked by neighboring states, caught in a broader battle over how to divide the dwindling river.

The largest tribal water rights agreement in U.S. history — the product of decades of negotiations to secure water for the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe — was on the verge of completion before Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming stepped in to oppose its codification by Congress.

“We have significant unresolved concerns regarding legislation that could affect the rights and interests of each of our states in the water of the Colorado River,” negotiators from Utah and Wyoming wrote to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in March in an unpublished letter. New Mexico And Colorado sent similar letters.

These four states, known collectively as the Upper Basin, are in a standoff with the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada over new rules governing how they share the Colorado River, a key water source for nearly 40 million people. Congress and the White House, both Democrats and Republicans, refused to approve the settlement until all parties reached an agreement.

For Marilyn Tewa, 83, this impasse means her family will continue to live without running water. Tewa is a member of the Hopi Tribal Council, where his duties include working on the water rights agreement, but his village of Mishongnovi, on the tribe’s reservation in northern Arizona, lacks indoor plumbing.

Every other day, she loads 5-gallon buckets into her pickup truck and drives 5 miles to a windmill originally built for livestock that draws untreated water from underground.

“This is what keeps us alive,” Tewa said, tapping the tap one afternoon in May.

Back home, Tewa was busy in her kitchen while her daughter kneaded the dough for dinner. There is no faucet in the kitchen, which is decorated with a framed American flag and a painting of a Katsina, a figure with spiritual significance in Hopi culture. Instead, the family stores water in large plastic containers. Due to the lack of indoor plumbing, the Tewa family and their neighbors use portable toilets located between houses.

If adopted into law, the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act would resolve the largest outstanding claim on the Colorado River while providing about $5 billion in federal funding to build infrastructure to transport water across the reservations. The legislation would also go beyond water rights, creating a reservation for the South San Juan Paiute. That of the tribe effort to secure a permanent homeland was added to the regulation due to their difficulty getting it passed by Congress independently.

“It is my prayer,” Tewa said, “that we get this settlement for all three tribes.”

The tribes need pipes, pumps and sewage treatment plants to use the water obtained from the settlement. To cover the cost beyond the federal government’s expected contribution, the Navajo and Hopi plan to lease some of their water rights, almost certainly to growing towns around Phoenix. Cities would pay to use the tribes’ water for a certain number of years.

While the Lower Basin states support the settlement, the Upper Basin states have been particularly keen on this provision because they oppose the settlement.

Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins does not precisely follow state borders. Some states have portions in both sections, and the line separating the two basins runs through northeastern Arizona and directly through the Navajo Reservation. If the water crosses that line, they argue, the rules governing the river give them veto power over the colony. (It’s an open legal question whether approval from all seven states is necessary.)

The Upper Basin states fear that in the future the water they currently control will be leased on a free market. They view any monetary transaction that moves water downstream as setting a precedent that could allow the highest bidder — perhaps money-hungry cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas — to buy large quantities of their water.

In an effort to assuage this concern and seal the deal, the Navajo and Hopi made significant concessions on the volume of water and length of time they could lease. The tribes also proposed leaving some of their water in one of the river’s drought-depleted reservoirs to keep the water level high enough that it could continue flowing downstream. But the Upper Basin did not waver in its opposition.

ProPublica and KJZZ News-Phoenix reached out to each Upper Basin state’s governor, senators and lead negotiator for comment. Lead negotiators from Utah and Wyoming deferred to the letter they co-signed. A spokeswoman for New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement that the tribes have addressed most of the state’s concerns, but questions remain about whether the water the tribes would lease to Arizona cities could be counted as part of what Upper Basin states are legally required to send to the Lower Basin. “New Mexico remains committed to finding a viable solution,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis also said the state was “committed to finding a path forward” and pointed to the letter that Becky Mitchell, the state’s top river negotiator, submitted to Congress. Mitchell wrote that the settlement’s leasing provisions violate laws governing the river and that the state was concerned about what selling water across the basin would mean for the “security and certainty” of Colorado’s share of the river.

Heather Tanana is an assistant professor at the University of Denver School of Law, where she focuses on federal Indian law. She is also a citizen of the Navajo Nation and said the Upper Basin is “trying to hide” behind the way the river has traditionally been managed rather than finding a way to give tribes access to a resource that is rightfully theirs and needs to survive.

“This is a fundamental human rights issue,” she said.

As negotiations drag on, the three tribes are still waiting for water that they say will help them build more housing, develop sustainable economies, better protect public health and preserve cultural practices.

The Hopi believe their ancestors return as clouds to bring the rain that feeds their corn, but drought ravages the region. Excessive dependence on groundwater dried up springs used for ceremonies and agriculture for centuries. When the settlement brings more water to the reserve, Tewa said, the aquifers will have a chance to recharge, restoring the springs.

“I speak on behalf of my children, my grandchildren and their children who have not yet come,” she said. “I hope in the future they will have water.”

Fighting for water since Elvis appeared on television

The fact that the settlement reached Congress seemed like a minor miracle to those involved.

The 30 federally recognized tribes with land in the Colorado River Basin it is estimated that they are entitled to at least a quarter of the river’s flow. But there is little incentive to give tribes the water to which they are entitled. Their rights are the highest on the river, meaning that in times of scarcity, everyone else would have their water cut off before the tribes. But since tribes currently use a fraction of their water, farmers, cities and businesses can use the rest for free.

If tribes used every drop they are entitled to, the river-sharing system that supports more than $1 trillion in annual economic output would collapse.

“Everyone is getting free Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute water right now. All seven basin states benefit from not having a settlement,” said Ethel Branch, a former Navajo attorney general who participated in the negotiations, adding that the water had been “stolen for over a century.”

In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled that if the federal government confined tribes to reservations, then it owed them enough water to support an agrarian economy on those lands. But to guarantee this promised water, called “Winter rights” proved difficult.

The tribes were excluded from pacts which shared the river. Navajos in particular were not allowed to join a founding case quantifying the rights of other users, and tribal members themselves rejected a proposed settlement in 2012, saying the agreement was unfair. The tribe is t therefore returned to the Supreme Court, demanding that the judges force the federal government to quickly settle the claims. The Navajos lost againwith the court’s majority ruling that their treaty with the United States did not require the government to take “affirmative steps” to provide the water it owed to the tribe.

“At every turn, they received the same response: ‘Try again,’” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote of the Navajo. in his dissent. “When this routine began in earnest, Elvis was still doing his rounds on the Ed Sullivan Show.”

Arizona politicians and tribal leaders have since concluded that they must combine the three tribes’ claims to finally settle their rights.

It was no small feat. The Navajo and Hopi have long had a contentious relationship. Underscoring their thorny partnership, leaders of various tribes in the region have accused the Navajo, the largest tribal nation in the United States, of exerting political strength at the expense of other tribes.

Arizona has also historically clashed with local tribes about water. The State has often inserted unrelated provisions in the proposed settlements, which some tribes viewed as poison pills that had the effect of blocking agreements.

But Navajo and Hopi reached an agreement and Arizona left its negotiating position. Now in sync, the supporters of the agreement turned to Congress, but they encountered other obstacles: the House of Representatives hesitated in the face of the dizzying rise in prices to finance the agreements; presidential administrations were unwilling to devote political capital to such settlements; and more than a dozen colonies are under construction, clogging the system. (No regulations have been adopted since 2022.)

“Partisanship has reached a new low in this country, and Indian water settlements have been dragged into this situation,” said Pam Williams, who spent about two decades as director of the Interior Department’s Office of Indian Water Rights before retiring last year.

In November 2024, as President Donald Trump prepared to return to the White House, the tribes believed they had the opportunity to push their settlement through Congress while President Joe Biden was still in office.

Navajo leaders had supported the Democratic presidential bid and feared that the new administration would be vindictive toward them.

The chief negotiator from each basin state, tribal staff and a federal representative visited the Arizona Department of Water Resources offices in Phoenix for what several attendees described as a “Hail Mary.” At the meeting, the Navajo proposed a major compromise: limiting the amount of water they could rent and the length of time they could rent it.

But the Upper Basin states showed up with a list of grievances, several attendees told ProPublica and KJZZ News-Phoenix, and were not interested in negotiations over Navajo leasing concessions.

“It’s difficult for the Upper Basin to understand this regulation,” said Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s Colorado River manager.

In March 2026, tribal leaders traveled to Washington for a Senate hearing where they made a passionate plea for Congress to pass a version of the bill that now includes the concessions they had proposed at the Hail Mary meeting. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who chaired the hearing, expressed support for the settlement but worried its $5 billion price tag was too high, a concern echoed by an Interior Department official who testified. (The tribes and the department are currently negotiating to reduce this cost.)

All four Upper Basin states submitted comments opposing the regulation. Their main concerns were the possibility of leasing the entire basin and whether water for the colony would be charged to the upper or lower division of the river.

The lease would last only as long as necessary to pay for the infrastructure needed to distribute the newly acquired water, Navajo President Buu Nygren said. It would not set a precedent, he said, because no other tribe straddles the two basins.

“We shouldn’t be punished for being split into two basins,” Nygren said, “because other tribal nations, other settlements were able to lease water.”

“How precious water is to us”

During the decades that tribes fought for access to their water, they helped quench the thirst of growing cities in the Colorado River basin.

A water intake plant on Navajo lands drew from Lake Powell to cool the nearby Navajo Generating Station. The coal plant powered the pumps of the Central Arizona Project, the 336-mile series of canals that carries Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson.

The power plant was closed in 2019 and the catchment station was turned over to the Navajo for the iiná bá-paa tuwaqat’si pipeline, meaning “for life” in Diné and “water is life” in Hopi, to provide water to all three tribes. But for now, the massive pumps remain mothballed, the building moldy and dark as a tomb, and the pipeline remains a technical blueprint, awaiting funding from the stranded colony.

The irony is not lost on tribal leaders, they told ProPublica and KJZZ News-Phoenix: Having helped move water beyond their lands, they now can’t use that same water and infrastructure to support their communities. The insult is compounded, they say, by the fact that water consumption is significantly reduced on reservations.

“It’s not about green lawns, golf courses or swimming pools,” said Crystalyne Curley, president of the Navajo Nation Council. “It’s as simple as turning on the tap and boiling water to boil your children’s eggs, turning on a tap to wipe and clean the table, or washing your hands after slaughtering a sheep.”

For the Paiute of southern San Juan, settlement also meant having a permanent homeland. They have no reservations but struck an agreement with Navajo in 2000 cede part of his land. Since the tribes have already reached an agreement, this proposal is not controversial. But, without political influence to convince Congress to take care of it, the land transfer was deferred to the water settlement.

“During the COVID era, it took a lot of tribal elders, and there are only a handful who have seen the treaty signed and really want to see it before their time is up,” said Johnny Lehi Jr., vice president of the Southern San Juan Paiute, whose father signed the 2000 agreement. Ultimately getting a reservation, he said, means the ability to build housing and develop an economy for a tribe that currently rents its government building.

Nearby on the Hopi Reservation, City Council member Marilyn Fredericks grabbed a pair of hiking poles, donned a hat with a roadrunner pin and set out from her village on a recent spring afternoon. To stay fit as she grew up, she walked up and down the hand-carved steps of a terraced garden that once produced food for her community.

Seven natural springs once fed the garden, but only two still flow. The ponds that stored their surpluses remain dry, the stains on the rock are only a memory of the water. It’s been six years since there hasn’t been enough to plant.

The settlement would fund a pipeline that would be “our umbilical cord,” Fredericks said. Future generations of Hopi have a right to clean, reliable water, she said. “This shows how precious water is to us.”