Law of the Rio Chama
Publication Date
2007
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This article explores the Six Middle Rio Grande Pueblo tribes' right to store water at El Vado Reservoir. Although not explicitly authorized in the Act of 1928, the legislative history suggests that implicit in the Act is authority for the Six Pueblos to store water at El Vado. The seventeenth Congress believed the Six Pueblos' land suffered from a rising water table, antiquated irrigation works, and an unreliable river flow. Accordingly, it intended all of the Pueblos' lands within the boundaries of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) to "materially benefit" from the Conservancy Project, which included storage at El Vado. The Department of the Interior acted upon the authorizations contained in the 1928 Act by entering into a series of agreements with the MRGCD. Those agreements explicitly recognized the Pueblos' right to store water at El Vado. Additionally, the Pueblos may have a right to store under New Mexico law through the MRGCD's storage permit No. 1690. That permit does not contain any limitation on the type of water rights authorized for storage at the Reservoir. The MRGCD included the Six Pueblos' lands in its permit application No. 0620 and did not exclude them from its permit application No. 1690.
Publisher
Natural Resources Journal
Recommended Citation
Mann, Joshua. "A Reservoir Runs Through It: A Legislative and Administrative History of the Six Pueblos' Right to Store "Prior and Paramount" Water at El Vado." (2007). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/uc_rio_chama/14
