Durango City Council members Gilda Yazzie and Olivier Bosmans attended a meeting last week with the Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute and Navajo Indian tribes to discuss the future of water use at Lake Nighthorse.
Yazzie said the focus of the July 14 meeting was to discuss the possibility of installing a 36-inch pipe linking Lake Nighthorse to Terminal Reservoir on College Mesa, as well as to explore other water infrastructure for the various tribes. The prospective city pipeline would be an emergency-only lifeline for the city in case its primary or secondary access to the Florida and Animas rivers is compromised.
The conversation evolved into considerations for the best way to install new water infrastructure if the Southern Utes, Navajo Nation and other tribes want to tap into the lake in the future, she said.
“Should we put in a smaller (pipeline) for us, or should we put in a bigger one for everybody?” she said.
The city of Durango has water rights for only a small portion of the water stored at Lake Nighthorse, she said.
She said everything discussed in the meeting is a long way out from being actualized.
But Yazzie said the meeting was a small first step toward better relations between the city of Durango and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, which criticized the city for its lack of communication with the tribe at a joint meeting in March, the first meeting between the two governments in three years.
“This was really a good step for me personally to meet some of their administrative people and (staff),” she said.
She said the city and Southern Ute tribe plan to establish regular communications between each organization’s staff to build and maintain relationships even as tribal councils and city councilors come and go.
Yazzie said the Southern Ute tribe has strong feelings about how the city and other governments have moved forward on past projects without seeking any input from the tribes.
“For me as an American Indian, I’ve also felt that,” said Yazzie, who is of Navajo background. “But I think what the city is trying to accomplish now is to create those lines of communication so we can all move forward as one to see about the needs of the community for our water usage in the future.”
The Southern Utes had questions about why the city didn’t engage with the tribe about the Lake Nighthorse water supply to begin with, why it’s making an effort to engage now and what is expected of the tribe, she said.
“All those topics are open and we were making the effort to move forward with the new, inclusive mindset. And I hope that helps with building strength and relationships between the city of Durango and our partners (with) Lake Nighthorse,” she said.
At the March meeting between the Southern Ute Tribal Council and City Council, the two governments agreed to meet quarterly about project developments.
Yazzie said she doesn’t know about any scheduled quarterly meetings between City Council and the Southern Ute Tribal Council, but the Lake Nighthorse meeting was among the first efforts by the city to consult with the tribe.
“I have big hopes that we can all work together and we can all gather our thoughts in our grill and see how we can work on this project together,” she said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
