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Stolen River
Over a century after its namesake river — the Gila — was stolen by colonization, the Gila River Indian Community won back its water rights. The legal battle took decades, but the Arizona-based community now has access to more than 600,000 acre-feet per year, about half of which comes from the Colorado River. That’s a larger allocation than almost any other tribe in the basin receives, and more than the city of Phoenix. But in the face of ongoing drought and a depleted Colorado River, those rights come with huge responsibility. In this episode, Marketplace Indigenous affairs reporter Savannah Maher teams up with host Amy Scott to explore how the Gila River Indian Community is using its water to restore its farming economy, build back wetlands that long ago dried up and help stabilize the Colorado River system. The community is not so interested in tying up the precious resource in 100-year water leases — the kind of leases that developers in the suburbs around Phoenix are thirsty for.
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