'The Nation is still waiting for the water it needs,' the tribe writes in court papers, asking the justices to greenlight a 'breach-of-trust claim' in federal court.
At the Supreme Court on Monday, the tribe will face off with the federal government and a group of states over what it calls a "broken promise" to bolster the reservation's water supply.Colorado River, a resource long the subject of litigation between states and carefully apportioned under a labyrinth of agreements to meet the needs of nearly 40 million Americans across the West.
"No substantive source of law expressly establishes the particular duty that the Navajo Nation asserts," the government said in a court filing. The states – Arizona, Colorado and Nevada – argue the Navajo Nation should never have been able to bring the claim in the first place, since the Supreme Court has asserted exclusive jurisdiction over disputes involving the Colorado River in a series of decisions and decrees over decades.
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