Supreme Court to Decide Navajo Nation's Access to Colorado River Water

The Navajo Nation is fighting for its water rights in the Supreme Court against the federal government and a group of states over what it calls a "broken promise" to bolster the reservation's water supply. The dispute involves the vital but increasingly strained Colorado River, a resource long the subject of litigation between states and carefully apportioned under a labyrinth of agreements to meet the needs of nearly 40 million Americans across the West. The tribe argues that the 1868 treaty establishing the reservation "promised both land and water sufficient for the Navajos to return to a permanent home in their ancestral territory."