Friday, April 6, 2012

Senate Bill 2109 Seeks to Extinguish Navajo and Hopi Water Rights

Native News Betwork

TUBA CITY, ARIZONA – Senators Jon Kyl, Arizona - R, and John McCain, Arizona - R, will be in Tuba City on Thursday, April 5, 2012, to persuade Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribal leaders to give up their peoples' aboriginal and Treaty-guaranteed priority Water Rights by accepting a "Settlement Agreement" written to benefit some of the West's most powerful mining and energy corporations.
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Senate Bill 2109 45; the "Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of 2012" was introduced by Kyl and McCain on February 14, 2012, and is on a fast track to give Arizona corporations and water interests a "100 th birthday present" that will close the door forever on Navajo and Hopi food and water sovereignty, security and self-reliance.

What the white man failed to accomplish with genocide, disease, starvation, and alcohol, he will finally accomplish with the stroke of a pen and a lot of lobbyists' money.

Kyl and McCain - and all the Repugs who will vote for this - disgust me. Nothing new.

1 comment:

BadTux said...

And the sad thing is that the Hopi and Navajo aren't even using those Colorado River water rights, they're selling the water for money, so it's not about water. It's about money. It's all about greedy corporate miners upset over having to pay the Hopi and Navajo for water for their mines. It's all about upper-class cities like Scottsdale and Fountain Hills having to actually *pay* for the water to send their fountains a hundred feet into the air and water a hundred golf courses. The day rich white people are happy paying Native Americans for the resources controlled by Native Americans is the day that rich white people decide to apologize for stealing pretty much everything else from them and compensate them for what was stolen. I ain't holdin' my breath.

- Badtux the Cynical Penguin