Thomas Beauty: Yavapai-Apache Nation addresses water rights

As a leader in the Verde Valley, I became concerned by the recent proposal of the Salt River Project (SRP) and the Verde Ditch Company (VDC) to settle certain aspects of the Nation's Verde Ditch water rights and those of our neighbors under the Hance v Arnold case - a case in the Yavapai County Superior Court that has governed the operations of the Verde Ditch since 1909.

The Yavapai-Apache Nation, together with the United States, is a shareholder in the Verde Ditch. Just like other shareholders, we use the Ditch to irrigate our lands from the Verde River. The Nation recognizes that the Verde Ditch, along with other ditches throughout the Valley are an important lifeline that supports our local economy and our way of life here in the Verde Valley.

With the ongoing drought, it has never been more important that we all work together to maintain and protect our water rights for our communities. If we neglect these rights, we face a reality that our rights may be forever lost to downstream interests, even as far away as Phoenix, under Arizona's prior appropriation water rights system which allows for water rights to be abandoned and forfeited under certain circumstances.

When the Nation was made aware last year that SRP and the Verde Ditch Company had negotiated a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for a "settlement" involving Verde Ditch rights and that they were asking the Hance v. Arnold Court to approve it, we became concerned not only for our water rights, but also for the rights of our neighbors on the Ditch. We considered what our collective future in the Verde Valley might look like if individual shareholders entered into the proposed Historic Water Rights (HWR) Agreements with SRP that were being presented to the Court.