Approximately 20 percent of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) agricultural water supply available under Arizona's basic entitlement to water from the Colorado River has been allocated to five Indian tribes by Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe.
The allocation, contained in a final notice signed today and to be published in the Federal Register, provides that, from the time the project
becomes operational in about 1985 until the year 2005, the five tribes will be entitled to 257,000 acre-feet of water per year for agricultural use on their reservations in Central Arizona.
The remainder of CAP agricultural water will be divided among non-Indian users in Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima Counties.
By 2005, much of the water delivered through the $1.6 billion project is expected to have been converted from agricultural to municipal and industrial use. Following that year, the tribes will be entitled to either 20 percent of the remaining agricultural water or 10 percent of the total
annual deliveries through the CAP, whichever is to their advantage.
Annual allocations by tribe for the first 20 years are as follows:
Ak Chin, 58,300 acre-feet; Gila River, 173,100 acre-feet; Papago, 8,000 acre-feet; Salt River, 13,300 acre-feet; and Fort McDowell, 4,300 acre-feet.
Secretary Kleppe said that the amount of water allocated for use on each reservation, when combined with already available surface and ground water, will allow irrigation of all presently developed Indian agricultural land. In addition, it will allow the Fort McDowell Tribe to irrigate new lands it may accept in exchange for lands it now owns in the proposed Orme Dam area.
