The Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian tribes in Oklahoma have filed a federal lawsuit to protect water rights they say derived from long-ago treaties and to prevent exports of water from their traditional homelands without their permission.
The dispute had been simmering for more than a year, since the export of water from Sardis Lake in southeastern Oklahoma to Oklahoma City was proposed in June 2010.
The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in United States District Court in Oklahoma City, accuses the State of Oklahoma of one-sided action to deprive the tribes of water rights they have held since the 1830s. It names the governor, the state water agency, Oklahoma City and that city’s water utility as defendants.
In an Aug. 18 letter to Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, the leaders of the two tribes said they were forced to act by both the drought, which has resulted in cutbacks in water use even in normally water-rich areas, and by Oklahoma City’s declared intention to pursue the export of water from Sardis, which is nearly 180 miles away.
The lawsuit says that Governor Fallin and the Oklahoma Water Resources Board erroneously based their claims to the distant water on state law, but that federal law governs cases of Indian water rights. It asks the federal court to prevent exports until water rights are analyzed and allocated.
Although firm water rights have been sought by tribes throughout the West, the Oklahoma situation is unusual, in part because of its geography.
Water fights tend to arise in arid regions; the tribes’ historic territories, when not enduring a drought like the current one, are in comparatively wet areas. Most Indian water claims involve water in or near existing reservations, but the land the Choctaw and Chickasaw held in common in Oklahoma was broken up a century ago.
The lawsuit argues that the tribes’ “rights to and regulatory authority over Treaty Territory water resources are prior and paramount to any water rights claimed by” the state.
Brian Vance, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, declined to comment on the lawsuit on Friday. “We simply don’t have enough information at this point,” he said.
(Source: www.nytimes.com )