Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation

Goshute Tribes Join Suit against BLM over S. Nevada Water Authority’s Groundwater Mining and Pipeline Project

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here (CTGR SNWA-ROD Lawsuit Press Release 2 19 14 Final):

Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation Join Coalition

Lawsuit against BLM’s Authorization of the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s Massive Groundwater Mining and Pipeline Project

Ibapah, Utah – The Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation (CTGR) joined the Great Basin Water Network’s recent lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Department of Interior (DOI) last week.  The lawsuit challenges BLM’s decision to grant a right-of-way for a water pipeline that would destroy irreplaceable cultural and natural resources.

“We cannot look the other way when the future of our people and homelands are in the hands of those who have their priorities mixed up,” stated CTGR Tribal Chairperson Madeline Greymountain.

“The federal government has failed in its trust responsibility, therefore CTGR has no recourse but to file suit against BLM for failure to protect our interests, which is a legal and moral obligation of the highest fiduciary standard.”

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“Tribes Win Big on Major Water Dispute in Nevada”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

An excerpt:

Indian Tribes in eastern Nevada received a great victory in a long-standing fight to protect their sacred lands and water from being drained and converted into a barren dust bowl by Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA).

Since the late 1980s, Las Vegas water officials have pushed plans to import groundwater from across eastern Nevada to supply future growth and provide a backup supply to the Las Vegas Valley, which gets 90 percent of its drinking water from an overtaxed and drought-stricken Colorado River. Water authority officials hope to deliver water to the valley from as far north as Great Basin National Park through a network of pumps and pipelines stretching more than 300 miles and costing as much as $15 billion. The attorney for SNWA has aptly called this the “largest water case in Nevada’s history”.

On December 10, 2013 the Seventh Judicial Court of Nevada in Ely reversed the Nevada State Engineer’s decision to grant SNWA virtually all of the groundwater in eastern Nevada water basins (about 84,000 acre feet annually). The Court ruled that the amount of water awarded had to be reduced and recalculated. Importantly, the Court also agreed with the Tribes that the monitoring and mitigation approved by the State Engineer had to be revised to include more participants and have more detailed standards to protect against environmental damage from draining groundwater from the basins.

Protect Goshute Water website

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Now available here.

This site has been put up to try to support the Goshutes in their attempts to protect their water supply instead of having it tapped into for the benefit of Las Vegas suburbs.