Despite having rights to Gila River water, the Gila River Indian Community also has to get water from the Central Arizona Project through canals. But the tribe recently announced that it will forgo 125,000 acre feet of Lake Mead water, earning it millions in federal funding aimed at encouraging water conservation.
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 lo...
