By: Daniel Cordalis
March 23, 2026
Published as part of The Headwaters Report
In celebration of World Water Day 2026, I wanted to share NARF’s recent water work, including case work highlights, the Tribal Water Institute story, and key issues we are tracking for Tribal Nations this year. NARF is privileged to be supporting Tribal Nations in their pursuit to protect and assert their water rights.
Water law has been a central legal issue for NARF since inception. Early NARF attorneys fought for treaty fishing rights in United States v. Washington and United States v. Michigan, supported five Southern California Tribal Nations who formed the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority to implement their negotiated water rights settlement, and helped the Klamath Tribes of Oregon bring their claims in the Klamath Basin (Oregon) Adjudication. NARF continued its work over the decades, defending Alaska subsistence rights in the Katie John and Organized Village of Kake cases, helped confirm groundwater as a water source to support Tribal reserved rights claims while representing the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, asserted the rights of the Nez Perce Tribe in the Snake River Basin Adjudication, and fought to settle the rights of the Tule River Indian Tribe, among others.
Our water work continues in many different venues. On behalf of the Bay Mills Indian Community, NARF is currently fighting the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline in Michigan. There, a Canadian company is proposing to dig an oil pipeline tunnel through the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan come together, a sacred area to the Tribe. The pipeline would physically ruin that area, destroying its time immemorial significance to the Tribe. The pipeline also threatens to harm water supplies should a leak or pipeline break occur. We also continues to represent the Nez Perce Tribe in the Palouse River Basin Adjudication, a state court proceeding to determine the nature, extent, and priority of water rights in the basin. Our work also involves fighting against a water pipeline in Utah that threatens a Tribe’s reserved water rights, and supporting salmon recovery efforts in Northern California. In Nevada, we are assisting the Walker River Paiute Tribe in the implementation of its recently decreed water rights, and in New Mexico, NARF is working to implement the Aamodt Settlement Act to bring safe, reliable water supplies to the Pueblos and others in the Pojoaque River Basin.
Tribal Water Institute
In early 2024, NARF launched the Tribal Water Institute (TWI), a first-of-its-kind project designed to increase the capacity of Tribal Nations to engage in water law issues and policy reform. The TWI meets the water priorities of Tribal Nations through three approaches: (1) building capacity and increasing the number of Tribal water lawyers by training early-career attorneys so they can support Tribal Nations when their TWI legal fellowships conclude, (2) educating Indian Country and the public on Tribal water law and policy; (3) developing water policy and legal reform concepts by collaborating with Tribal Nations, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGO), federal and state governments, and other entities, and (4) directly representing Tribal Nations in water rights adjudications and settlements.
Since launching the TWI, NARF has substantially increased our water case work, increased our collaboration with other partners, launched “The Headwaters Report,” a Tribal water law and policy informational and educational blog site, and hired two staff attorneys and five legal fellows, making NARF the most well-staffed, Tribal-focused water law firm in the United States. In our first year, we took on cases involving the Clean Water Act (CWA), hydropower licensing, water rights protection, fishery protection, general stream adjudications, and amicus briefing opportunities. We also participated in and spoke at conferences, webinars, and in various media about our work on Tribal water issues .
As the TWI moved through its second year and now into its third, we better understand the water needs of Tribal Nations and how to meet those needs. Tribal Nations are looking for additional support and resources to address water issues, particularly as climate change threatens both Tribal homelands and the viability of management frameworks. This is evident in our work so far in the Colorado, Rio Grande, Klamath, Kootenai, and Columbia River Basins, as well as in the Great Lakes region, where unresolved Tribal water rights create uncertainty to other water users as well as limit Tribes’ ability to manage and protect their water supplies.
Confounding the issue is that Tribal water issues are present in a myriad of situations, from traditional water rights adjudications and settlements to hydropower relicensing, infrastructure development, Endangered Species Act issues, water quality protection and jurisdiction, and policy reform. Indeed, the laws that implicate Tribal water rights are more far ranging than ever, are quickly evolving, and require a diverse legal skill set to navigate carefully to ensure Tribal sovereignty and Tribal resources are protected. Our casework is intentionally taking on many of these issues because we want to diversity our expertise to meet these needs.
A primary goal in creating the TWI was to provide Indian Country relevant and timely Tribal water information and resources. We are pleased with the result, our Headwaters Report. Since starting the report, we’ve posted slide decks on Tribal water law basics, links to administrative, judicial, and congressional resources, and in-depth articles, including:
- Clean Water Act (CWA) issues, putting offering important and timely information on proposed regulatory changes and resources for Tribal Nations to better understand the issues, like the currently pending Waters of the United States (WOTUS) proposed rule change.
- Primer on hydropower relicensing through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Forty percent (40%) of hydropower projects are projected to be up for renewal in the next decade, where critical aquatic-based Tribal interests may be implicated and Tribes can seek protections through hydropower operations changes.
- Overview of water issues in Oklahoma and Alaska.
- Water-focused interviews with NARF Executive Director John Echohawk and University of Wyoming Law Professor Jason Robison.
- And more!
The TWI has been very successful in bringing new water issues to light. For example, our article about hydropower relicensing through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and current representation involving two hydropower projects provides us great insight into this up-and-coming water issue affecting hundreds of waterways and Tribal interests. We know the coming work in this area will be significant, that our federal partners have limited capacity to handle this work, and that gaining expertise in this area will benefit Indian Country. Our work on the CWA is proving similar, but different, opportunities. Here, we engaged in regulatory litigation on the Tribal Reserved Rights Rule to protect a smart procedural rule that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated in 2024 that would provide a clear structure for states to recognize Tribal aquatic rights in setting water quality standards. While the outlook on the Tribal Reserved Rights Rule is bad given this Administration’s unfavorable position on it, our collaboration defending the rule on behalf of a coalition of Tribal Nations has been beneficial and has been a basis for additional CWA work, including WOTUS and 401 certification proposal comments. We also hosted a Tribal CWA meeting in October 2025, identifying different obstacles and priorities for Tribes, with approximately forty people in attendance representing the range of CWA experiences from Tribal water program staff to Tribal legal counsel and NGO experts.
We are excited about the future of the TWI, supported by terrific NARF staff attorneys and our legal fellows.
What We Are Watching
Along with the work highlighted above, NARF is tracking ongoing Tribal water-related issues, including:
- Salmon Recovery in the Columbia River Basin. In on-going litigation regarding Columbia River dam operations management litigation, National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service, Tribes and conservation groups are arguing that federally operated dams on the river are harming the long-term viability of endangered salmon and steelhead fish in violation of the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The many parties in this litigation entered into an agreement early in the Biden administration that stayed (or, paused) this litigation while the parties sought a comprehensive plan to address Columbia River fishery and hydropower issues. Shortly after commencing his second presidential term, the Trump Administration invalidated the agreement and the court lifted the stay. In late February 2026, the court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the federal operators to increase spills over the dam to support salmon and steelhead, but the court stopped short at providing other requested relief.
- Clean Water Act Rollback. The EPA continues to actively narrow the strength of the CWA through WOTUS and 401 certification rulemakings and is now planning to undertake rulemaking to rescind the Tribal Reserved Rights Rule, which NARF and its partners are defending in court. These changes are an attempt to reduce federal oversight and protection of waterways in favor of state or local control over waters. For Tribes, this can make it harder to protect water and aquatic-based rights where states are adverse to Tribal interests and the federal government, as Tribal trustee, may be unlikely to get involved. NARF will continue to engage with Tribal Nations and our partners to build CWA recommendations and policy ideas to support Tribal priorities so we can be ready when the opportunity arises to improve federal water protections.
- Federal Reserved Indian Water Right Settlements. Congress has shown tepid interest in Indian water rights settlements. The Administration’s statements in a recent congressional hearing on the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act – settling water claims of the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute – indicate the Administration is hyper-focused on the costs of settlements rather than the positive impact of them.
- Colorado River Negotiations. The Colorado River Basin is careening toward a potentially disastrous situation. The 2025/2026 winter snowpack in the Colorado, the river’s headwaters state, is at a record low. Further, this winter has been the warmest winter in recorded history in the basin. Coming on the heels of a modest water year in 2024/2025, this winter is stressing the basin’s supply, mostly stored in reservoirs, in unprecedented ways. Incredibly, the Bureau of Reclamation’s most probable forecast for Lake Powell shows minimum power pool elevation being reached by December 2026. If the water drops below this point, the Glen Canyon Dam may no longer generate hydroelectricity. This is well beyond just a Tribal water issue, where millions of people are dependent on Colorado River flows for drinking water and for agricultural and industrial use. This paper, by Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, John Fleck, Eric Kuhn, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara, does a terrific job at discussing the need for immediate action given reservoir conditions.
- Developing Tribal Law to Protect Water. Tribal Nations are taking meaningful steps to protect water based on their inherent sovereignty, including through “rights of nature” or “personhood” Tribal resolutions or laws (see this article on Colorado River Indian Tribes/CRIT), Tribal water codes, Tribal water quality standards (CWA and non-CWA), and implementation of other forms of Tribal law. This is important work that Tribal Nations can do independent of federal or state programs to support Tribal governance over water in a culturally reflective manner.
World Water Day gives us a chance to look back at our work and be thankful for the trust and strength Tribal Nations gave us to work with them on water issues, and it gives us a chance to pause and be grateful that we can continue to do so. The future is hard, politics and climate changes are rewriting the rules, but NARF is prepared to evolve to meet the moment and continue fighting to protect the rights of Tribal Nations.
Ahéhee’.
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