Up to 37,764 acre-feet of water a year will be diverted from the San Juan River to provide water for Navajo, Jicarilla-Apache and the city of Gallup under a plan released today by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

A total of 35,764 acre-feet of water could be consumed per year, helping meet the water needs of up to 250,000 people through 2040 under the plan. Water consumption was estimated at 160 gallons per person per day. The San Juan diversion is supposed to provide easier access to drinking water for Navajos who currently haul their drinking water and provide water to the city of Gallup, which relies on an aquifer that has declined by 200 feet in the last decade.

The Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Report and Environmental Impact Statement is another step in the 2005 settlement of Navajo Nation water rights in New Mexico on the San Juan River. A group of farmers along the San Juan River lobbied against the settlement, saying it provided too many water rights for the Navajo Nation among other concerns. The settlement includes the diversion of 340,000 acre-feet of water for use by the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project.

To see the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply plan online, go to http://www.usbr.gov/uc/ and click on Environmental Documents.