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Water Rights Our firm is very active in protecting Indian water rights and has considerable expertise in this area which members of our firm acquired through legal work done even before the firm was established. That work has continued and is an important part of our practice. We represented one of the tribes in perhaps the only water case tried from beginning to end - and in a reasonable time - resulting in an award of over 500,000 acre feet annually for the Tribes involved, the major portion of the water in the system. We also represented a tribe in Montana in a settlement that awarded one million acre feet of Missouri River water to that tribe and protected the tribe's authority to administer all tribal water rights on its reservation. Later through legislative work, we also helped get funding for a major pipeline to deliver Missouri River water to the major towns of the Reservation and surrounding communities.
In the course of our water rights work, we have developed a group of lawyers thoroughly familiar with Indian water law as it exists and as it is changing, a group of tested experts available to work with us on water cases, and the experience in litigation, negotiation and legislative work to strive for good settlements or effective litigation as needed.
At present, we are involved in water litigation and settlement activities for tribes in Arizona and California and pueblos in New Mexico.
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