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As
I’ve followed the long-running
negotiations over the Colorado River the
last couple of years, very little
progress has been made in transforming
the century-old system of managing the
river’s dwindling water. The Colorado’s
giant
reservoirs have dropped
because of heavy water use and a
quarter-century of drought, worsened by
climate change, yet seven Western states
have remained
deadlocked on how to take
less water and live within the river’s
limits.
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In
the last month, though, leaders of a
tribal nation on the California-Arizona
border offered a concept that might help
transform the discussions — or at least
ensure that the health of the river
itself isn’t completely ignored.
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The
Tribal Council of the Colorado River
Indian Tribes decided to recognize the
river as a legal person under tribal
law. It’s the second time a Native tribe
has declared legal personhood for a
river in the United States. The Yurok
Tribe in Northern California in 2019
declared the Klamath
River a legal person.
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I
was interested to learn more about why
the leaders of the Colorado River Indian
Tribes, or CRIT, wanted to take this
step, and Chairwoman Amelia Flores
agreed to talk with me.
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She
said they reached the decision after
discussing the idea for a year, holding
community meetings to hear input from
the more than 4,000 tribal members.
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“It
just reaffirms what our tribal members
already know and what we believe,”
Flores said. “This river is alive, and
has taken care of us for many, many,
many years.”
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“This
river is a part of us,” she added. “It’s
who we are.”
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When
Flores was growing up in the 1950s and
‘60s, she and her family swam, fished
and camped at the river on summer
weekends.
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The
reservation,
established in 1865, encompasses nearly
300,000 acres straddling the river in
Arizona and California, a patchwork of
lush farm fields across a wide plain
bordered by desert mountains.
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The
Mojave people, one of the tribes that
make up CRIT, have lived along the river
for thousands of
years. Their traditional
name is Aha Makav, meaning the People of
the River.
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Flores
noted it’s a central part of their
creation story, and features prominently
in traditional songs.
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“We
always say we’re stewards of the river
from our Creator, who gave us our
resources, our land and our water,” she
said.
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“It’s
ingrained in us by our ancestors to
protect the river,” she said. “And we
carry that on from one generation to the
next.”
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In
the Colorado River Basin, there are 30
tribal nations. They have rights to
roughly one-fourth of the river water.
Indigenous leaders have long been largely
excluded from the states’
negotiations, but tribes
have volunteered to take part in previous
water conservation deals.
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CRIT
and other tribes have said they are
willing to help reduce water use as the
states try to hash out a plan to keep
reservoirs from falling to critically
low levels.
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The
personhood decision was to “acknowledge
that the river itself has needs,” said
John Bezdek, a water attorney for CRIT,
and to affirm tribal leaders’ commitment
to addressing those needs.
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The
river ecosystem has been largely an
afterthought in talks about managing its
water. For decades, so much water has
been taken out for farms and cities that
the river has seldom met the
sea.
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The
decision means that future leaders will
have to account for the river’s welfare
when, for example, they agree to lease out some
of the reservation’s water, Bezdek
said.
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Flores
said she knows of at least two other
tribes that are interested in taking the
same step. The more that follow suit,
she said, “the better it’s going to be
in protecting the river.”
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More
recent water news
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For
more about the personhood decision, read
this great article
by Debra Utacia Krol of the Arizona
Republic. Alex Hager of the public radio
station KUNC also visited the
reservation for a story
earlier this year. Tribal Chairwoman
Amelia Flores wrote in an op-ed in
the Republic that she and others see a
sacred obligation to protect the river
ecosystem “at a time when, more than
ever, it is needed.”
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A
year after the removal of
four dams on the Klamath
River, salmon can once again reach
spawning habitats far upriver near the
California-Oregon border. Michael
Harris, an environmental program manager
for the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife,
said “there are salmon everywhere” and
their quick reappearance in their
ancestral habitats is “both remarkable
and thrilling.” Barry McCovey Jr.,
fisheries director for the Yurok Tribe,
said he was also surprised by how
quickly the salmon returned. “I don’t
think anyone really expected how well
the fish would respond to dam removal.”
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The
Trump administration recently notified
California agencies that it plans to
weaken environmental protections and
pump more water out of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta into
the southbound aqueducts of the Central
Valley Project. The proposal has drawn
strong opposition from Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s administration, as shown in
letters to the federal government. I
wrote about the debate over
the plan, which state
officials warn would threaten native
fish and could reduce water to millions
of Southern Californians.
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More
climate and environment news
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President
Trump announced a
proposal this week to weaken
vehicle mileage rules for the auto
industry that limit air pollution. My
L.A. Times colleagues Tony Briscoe and
Hayley Smith report that the plan is
expected to be finalized next year and
would significantly reduce fuel
efficiency standards for new vehicles in
model year 2031. Trump said the
government is terminating what he called
“ridiculously burdensome, horrible”
standards. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the
president is helping his “Big Oil
campaign donors” and it will “poison our
air.”
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A
California environmental oversight board
has taken another step toward improving
how it deals with hazardous waste. But
Briscoe reports for
The Times that environmental
groups fear the plan could weaken
protections by potentially redefining
what counts as hazardous.
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Searching
for economical strategies to prevent
wildfires, power utilities are working
with a handful of artificial
intelligence startups to map fire risks
along thousands of miles of power lines.
Lauren Rosenthal and Joe Wertz report for
Bloomberg that utilities
including PG&E are contracting AI
startups to analyze satellite images and
identify where trees are most likely to
topple onto power lines and spark fires,
enabling them to select individual trees
to cut and poles to replace.
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This
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