![]() Briefly, these principles acknowledge history, that is, the valid claim of the Indians to water when reservations were established for them. There is no doubt that these were all commendable outcomes, and those who have crafted subsequent water settlements have replicated, or at least striven for, similar principles. Characteristically, too, the settlement act guaranteed that non-Indian water users would no longer face uncertainty over their access to water. It invoked federal and local aid to transport this supply through the aqueducts of the Central Arizona Project. Supreme Court ruling that reserved water for reservations. ![]() ![]() It fulfilled the Indians’ rights to water under the Winters doctrine, the historic U.S. The settlement act terminated a suit against 17,000 claimants to water in the Tucson basin. The water supply for the new farm, or the new city, was assured by the Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act of 1982, an event that typifies, and indeed in many ways initiated, the historical moment that the authors herein are addressing and defining. Eying the newly confirmed water supply for the district in 1983, a developer broached the idea of leasing 18,000 acres from the Indians for ninety years to house 100,000 newcomers to the Sunbelt city. But the alternative, as she well knew, was worse. Bureau of Reclamation, she alluded to a curse that was to last seven generations should the bones of her ancestors be disturbed by leveling the desert for a new 9,000-acre farm. Addressing engineers and planners from the U.S. The choice was most eloquently defined by a young councilwoman from the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham reservation near Tucson, Arizona. It is the choice itself which I find troublesome. What these authors do with honesty and, I think, a great deal of success, is suggest how best to face this choice. What we face, and what these authors address, without quite saying so, is a Hobson’s choice in the new, postliberal West. My intent is not to impugn these authors and their efforts but to put into relief the time and place in which these efforts are being made. INTRODUCTION: NOTES ON CONTEXT AND FINALITYĪgainst the emerging consensus reported here-among practitioners and observers of Indian water rights negotiations-I want to sketch a dissent.
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