WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Two Navajo Nation committees rejected a plan to sell surplus water to a coal company and two power plants in the San Juan Basin in a drought, saying the proposal didn't compensate Navajo farmers.
The resolution would not have paid more than 800 Navajo farmers for taking cuts in irrigation water, although the tribe would profit from the sales, said Upper Fruitland Council Delegate LoRenzo Bates, a former Navajo Agri-cultural Products Industry general manager.
The Navajo Council's intergovernmental relations committee voted down the resolution Monday.
The resolution would have let the tribe broker a deal to sell surplus Navajo water to the San Juan Generating Station and the Four Corners Power Plant, both partially owned by PNM and BHP Billiton Coal near Farmington. PNM operates the San Juan Generating Station; the Four Corners Pow-er Plant is operated by Arizona Public Service.
"We're disappointed in the decision to reject the proposal," Frederick Bermudez, a PNM spokesman, said Tuesday from Albuquerque, N.M.
The surplus water would have come from the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, which has rights to 508,000 acre-feet of water behind Nav-ajo Dam near Farmington. NAPI proposed to limit itself to 204,000 acre-feet under the agreement.
The council's government services committee later Mon-day tabled an agreement over San Juan River water use because it called for the Navajo water sale.
The proposed water-use recommendation outlined how water would be shared if a drought is declared. The agreement was meant to avoid a fight along the San Juan River, especially for those with no contracted storage rights in Navajo Reservoir.
The water would have been sold for as little as $80 an acre-foot
and as much as $392 an acre-foot.
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