The seven states that use the Colorado River have been at a standstill for months over who will take cuts to water use in the midst of record-breaking drought.
But in addition to those states, there are 30 federally-recognized Indigenous tribes in the Colorado River Basin who rely on the river, though they were denied water rights and participation in negotiations by the federal government and the states when the Colorado River Compact was initially signed in 2022.
Jay Weiner is of counsel to majority Native-owned law firm Rosette LLP. He is also the water lawyer for the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, whose reservation and ancestral lands are on the Colorado River in California and Arizona, near the border with Mexico. The tribe was initially guaranteed rights to Colorado River water through a Supreme Court decree in 1964. But, it took until 2006 for them to gain full water rights due to issues with the reservation’s boundaries.
Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Caroline Llanes spoke with Weiner to learn more about tribal water rights and the Colorado River.
Editor’s note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Llanes: So how do tribes like Quechan fit in with the bigger picture of the Colorado River?
Weiner: One of the things that the Supreme Court put in place is a very specific legal command that says that in times of shortage, if there is not enough water to satisfy all of the water rights in the Lower Basin, then with the exception of two very, very small other rights, (the Bureau of) Reclamation is obligated by the U.S. Supreme Court to satisfy the water rights of the five tribes ahead of everybody else. We, the tribes whose water rights are protected by that injunction, feel pretty good about our ability not to have involuntary out of priority cuts crammed down our throat. That is very good protection. As a practical matter, however, we are all lower river mainstem tribes, and Quechan in particular in where its reservation is in the southeastern corner of California, in the southwestern corner of Arizona fairly close to Yuma and sitting literally on the Mexican border—we like our legal position, we like our paper water rights. But the hydrologic reality is such that if there are management decisions being made or hydrologic conditions that nature imposes on us that doesn't actually allow water to physically move down the river, we can have the best water rights in the world, but that actually is not going to fully protect us.
And then the other piece is that it's just an extraordinarily important cultural value to be stewards of the river. The tribe has lived there since time immemorial. They have relied on that ecosystem for material, cultural, and spiritual needs. And one of the things that the tribe really values and strongly believes in is that we need a durable and sustainable river management framework so that we can have a truly living river from its headwaters down to Mexico because that is culturally important. The ecosystems, including the people that rely on it, need a durable and sustainable river. And we're certainly prepared to fight to protect our water rights and to ensure that the tribe and its members can continue to benefit from what's theirs. But a consensus path forward and a predictable path forward is the optimal outcome here, rather than something that simply devolves into a pitch battle in the courtroom. Even though I cannot underscore strongly enough, we really, really like our legal position if that's what it comes to.
Llanes: So obviously we've been hearing a lot about the current situation of the Colorado River, mainly that the seven states have to present a deal to the Bureau of Reclamation, but haven't been able to agree. Quechan and the other tribes on the river aren't in that room. How do they participate in this process and make their voices heard when they don't have negotiators?
Weiner: Each individual tribe makes its own decisions about how and with whom to engage and what its participation in the process looks like. I mean, one of the things that Quechan is very proud of is that in the Lower Basin, on the mainstem of the river, part of the way that Endangered Species Act compliance is done is through what's known as the Multi-Species Conservation Program, which is a Reclamation-run program that deals with programmatic ESA compliance. Starting in 2003, Quechan engaged with a bunch of stakeholders in the Yuma area and the Yuma Heritage Crossing program to construct an MSCP Habitat Restoration Program on the reservation. And that is actually the largest use, now, of the tribe's Arizona water rights, is for this 400-acre restoration project on the mainstem of the river. And so the tribe has been really creative over the years in building relationships and partnerships.
And one of the things that has led to is that in, I want to say, 2022 (California) Governor Newsom appointed then-Tribal Council President Jordan Joaquin to the Colorado Board of California. The chairman of that board, JB Hamby, is the governor's principal negotiator for California in the negotiations. So the tribe has had really good access and visibility into the California portion of the negotiations in a way that, previously, we did not have visibility. And so while it's true that there is not sort of a sovereign table, I think one of the things that looks different about this round of negotiations certainly than happened in, in 2007, and obviously what happened in 1922 when, you know, there was no consideration of tribes or tribal rights other than sort of what chief negotiator (Herbert) Hoover had stuck in is what's known as the “Wild Indian article” (Article VII of the Colorado River Compact), which basically says, “yeah, we're not dealing with any of that here. That's a federal problem we don't need to talk about.”
And so there's been, I think, good progress in the basin in various ways. There's a memorandum of understanding among the five Upper Basin tribes and the Upper Colorado River Commission that at least established some communication protocols. I know the Gila River Indian community has been hugely engaged in Arizona. And so I think there are a lot of examples of ways that tribes are recognizing that the current hydrologic situation really has the capacity to impact us. Because that's the other piece. And if you look back and you look at the priority date that tribes have, like the hydrology that were being contemplated in 2007, by and large, were not so dire that you were going to impact senior tribal water rights. That's no longer the world that we're living in. And I think tribes have very much recognized that, and are therefore choosing to prioritize limited resources in ways to increase engagement and to try to exercise as much agency and control as possible over what has really been a very frustrating and disappointing federal state process.
And I think the failures of that process have actually opened up more, rather than less, decision space for tribal participation. Because if the feds and states had figured this out already, they would've figured it out already. They'd tell us what they do because that's how the basin’s run for a century. The fact that they haven't leaves room for additional stakeholder engagement, more creative ideas, the need to get consensus and the need to listen to more voices and try to get to that place.
Llanes: We are staring down the barrel of a record bad year for runoff on the Colorado River. How is Quechan thinking about this hydrological reality of drought and this coming spring and available water supplies?
Weiner: The hydrology this year is god-awful. But like, that's not a surprise. We were in a really dark place in 2022 and one of the things that Quechan has been focused on is trying to ensure as much resilience as possible. And so we are working to do irrigation efficiency improvements, including, using not just federal, but also corporate and philanthropic funding, trying to build some innovative partnerships there to find the resources to do not just irrigation efficiency improvements, but also on-reservation ecosystem restoration. And the third leg of the stool is also building internal tribal capacity at a staff level to really be able to do on the ground management, to be able to look at innovative water management programs.
We've got a seasonal fallowing program, we actually have two seasonal fallowing programs going currently that we're exploring how to expand to do those in ways that make sense to the grower community, that makes sense to the tribe, that help manage the cumulative water use budget in ways that can either help bolster elevations at (Lake) Mead or to allow other people whose demands may be less elastic to perhaps find ways to navigate some of these challenges. It really is ultimately about trying to figure out how to be as resilient as possible. You know, I do hear other people in the basin talking about, “well, but wait, we were promised these things and this was the agreement and this was the deal that was made.” And quite literally, welcome to tribes’ world.
Llanes: Well, we're all keeping an eye on what comes out of both negotiations between states and the Bureau of Reclamation. Jay, this was very helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with Rocky Mountain Community Radio.
Weiner: My pleasure.
Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
