Settlement of Aamodt Water Rights Litigation Celebrated in Santa Fe

Ernest Mirabal remembers being served paperwork in the Aamodt water rights lawsuit in 1966, when he was governor of Nambé Pueblo. “We wondered if we’d still be around to see how this whole thing turned out,” he said Thursday in the new gymnasium at Santa Fe Indian School. Mirabal was one of several speakers at a ceremony with students, lawyers and dignitaries who gathered at the gym to celebrate the Aamodt water rights litigation settlement, after more than 40 years of litigation. In December, President Barack Obama signed legislation approved by Congress settling the case, intended to sort out water rights issues among four Indian pueblos and non-Indian residents in northern Santa Fe County. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was the headliner. After congratulating the Indian School’s two-time defending state champion girls basketball team, he told the crowd Aamodt was a high priority for Obama. Already, $56.4 million has been provided to the project for a design-and-planning phase of the regional water system in Pojoaque Valley, which will draw from the Rio Grande at the Otowi Bridge near San Ildefonso Pueblo and deliver water to area homes. The federal government is expected to ultimately pay about $170 million for the project. The state of New Mexico and Santa Fe County are expected to contribute a combined $117 million...more