Final - Gavin

Water Rights

According to the Declaration of Independence, “Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness,” are rights that every living person is entitled to. However, the American government is violating these basic rights, by placing restrictions on one the most essential substances needed to sustain life, water. Water rights on reservations cause debate that still rages today. However, before anybody can settle this issue, someone must determine how to properly measure how much water is needed, as the current method of measuring water rights is insufficient to accurately determine how much water should be given to the tribes.

As of now, the American Government’s system of water distribution is called the practicably irrigable acreage standard, or the PIA (Brougher). This standard states that water rights are determined by the amount of land that can be irrigated “reasonably and feasibly” (Brougher). The government measures the acreage of irrigable land that each reservation has, and then allots the amount of water they deem the reservation needs. (Brougher).

Even though the United States has agreed to this system, the PIA is flawed, and is insufficient to determine water rights.

The first flaw of the PIA is that it determines the need for water based on geographic location (Shane). The vast areas of reservation are not geologically homogeneous, so some tribes will end up recieving more water than others. This is unfair to tribes in areas with less irrigable land and also has the potential to undersupply certain reservations. If a reservation has little irrigable land, but a high need for water due to population or industry, they will not have a sufficient amount of water, because the system of water distribution is based on their geographical location, and not the actual need.

Another problem with the PIA is that it is a system based on the idea that agriculture is the livelihood of Native American peoples. While this may have been true for some in the past, with new inventions and technology, farming is no longer the central livelihood used to sustain them. However, they are basing their allocation of the water rights on the outdated system.

Another reason this system is flawed is because it does not take into account the water quality, only quantity (Weldon). If the water rights need to be used for purposes other than agriculture, it cannot, and might as well be nonexistent. Quantity is important, but quality is too. So, in order to create a fairer system of distribution, the quality of the water must be taken into consideration as well.

The practicably irrigable acreage standard also needs revision, because it contradicts the theory of minimal need (Shane). In order for there to be a system that works, there must not be any contradictions with other federal water rights principals.

Since there are so many flaws in the practicably irrigable acreage standard, it is an unfair system that divides a much needed resource. It causes uneven distribution between tribes because of geography. The PIA is based on facts and practices that are outdated, and do not reflect the lives of the people today. It does not take quality of the water into account, which can cause limitations of the usage. It also contradicts the federal water right theory of minimum usage. In order to have a fair system that can be used by the courts to settle disputes, there should be a new system set into place that takes more into account than just the geography of the reservation.