Water pipeline has one more small kink

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — After more than three decades of discussion, officials for the city of Gallup and the Navajo Nation are at the brink of a historic memorandum of understanding in connection with the long-proposed Navajo-Gallup Water Pipeline.

It has been accepted by the tribe’s powerful Intergovernmental Relations Committee and is now waiting for the signature of Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr.

But it may have a hard time getting approved by the Gallup City Council, at least in its present form.

When it came up for discussion Tuesday during a work session of the council, Mayor Harry Mendoza said he had a number of questions about just how fair the MOU is to Gallup, and other members agreed that there needs to be more discussion until the city council can give its approval to the document.

The MOU sets forth a series of agreements between the tribe and the city on matters dealing with the pipeline. It’s not a final agreement — that won’t happen until such things as how much each side will pay of the proposed $800 million project is set — but it does set forth certain areas of agreement in connection with the complex proposal.

The main problem that Mendoza and others on the council had were sections of the MOU that deals with the tribe’s role in helping Gallup secure a water source.

The pipeline will bring water from the San Juan River to Gallup and various Navajo communities in New Mexico and eastern Arizona.

The MOU states that “the Navajo Nation is committed to working with the city of Gallup to find a surface water supply for the project.”

The agreement also adds that the city’s water most likely will come out of the Navajo Reservoir Supply Contract that the tribe and the Secretary of the Interior are now finalizing as part of the San Juan River Settlement. The Navajo Nation is anticipating getting 22,654 acre-feet of water as part of the settlement and the city would be allowed to get up to 7,500 acre-feet a year.

The provision in the agreement that Mendoza and others on the council are leery about says that the tribe and the city agree to negotiate a subcontract of the water from the tribe’s contract for water supplies not to exceed 7,500 acre-feet per year for a term of 25 years “following completion of the project.”

In other words, this agreement will not be signed until the project is completed and the water is ready to be delivered to the tribe and the city.

But this will put the city in a very precarious situation, Mendoza said.

The project will be done, the water will be ready to flow and at that point, he said, the tribe won’t need the city’s help any longer. What’s to say that the tribe and the city can’t reach an agreement, which will leave the tribe with a pipeline and the city without a water source.

“We need to negotiate that contract before the pipeline is built,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza and others on the council said that before the city approves the MOU, a great deal more discussion needs to be done on this provision as well as other areas that the city has concerns about.

Councilor Bill Nechero urged the council to hold a special session in the near future and invite people who have been involved in the pipeline discussions to answer some of the council’s concerns and Mendoza agreed that this was a good idea. No date has been set for the special session yet.