Intertribal Life Newspaper -

WASHINGTON, D.C.-The Gila River Indian Community could get up to $233 million in federal funding for water conservation, one of the first to get the money under a program aimed at encouraging water cutbacks in Arizona, California and Nevada.

The tribe will get $50 million from the Inflation Reduction Act this year in exchange for agreeing to leave 125,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead that it would otherwise be entitled to. There is an option for the tribe to do so again in 2024 and 2025, receiving $50 million for each year it conserves that much water in the lake, which is at dangerously...