Soboba Band’s water rights conflict resolved under settlement act

From Indian County Today:

With President George W. Bush’s signing of an act that brings a water rights conflict of more than 150 years to a close for a southern California Indian tribe, Secretary of the Interior Department Dirk Kempthorne and a congresswoman joined the tribe Aug. 15 for a ceremony celebrating its passage.

Under the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians Settlement Act (Public Law 110-297), signed by the president July 31, the Sobobas, their neighbors in Riverside County and three water districts are guaranteed adequate future water supplies, an exchange of land and millions of dollars from the federal government. The Sobobas will also get $18 million from some of the water districts for economic development and a potential economic stimulus.

”It’s been a very long negotiation, and we thank our former tribal chairmen and council members who fought so hard for this, leaving us to merely dot the i’s and cross the t’s,” Soboba Chairman Robert Salgado Sr. said in a joint press release with Interior.

Calling the Soboba’s decision to hold back using some of its water rights a ”tipping point” in the settlement, Kempthorne praised the tribe’s cooperation.

”By agreeing to gradually phase in increased water use over the next half-century, the Soboba have provided the Eastern Municipal Water District and the Lake Hemet Municipal Water District the time to develop and implement a groundwater management plan to cure the current overdraft in the San Jacinto Basin,” he said in the release.

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