![Pandemic mitigation efforts included installing new water sources for communities, like this one at the Tse Daa K’aan (Hogback) Chapter. Photo Credit: Elizabeth Miller](/images/resized/images/news/2016/324_jun18/21_100_100.jpg)
CONCLUSION: A deal climate change could bust
As part of the settlement that made the Navajo-Gallup Project a possibility, the Navajo Nation shifted its priority date from 1868, when the reservation was established and among the earliest rights in the Colorado River Basin, to 1955.
“That’s yesterday, in terms of water rights,” Brad Udall, senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, said.
Given that the system puts the newest rights at the top of the list to cut when faced with a shortage, that puts Navajo water supplies in the crosshairs when faced with ongoing drought and increasing aridification of the Southwest.
Flows in the entire Colorado...