Sponsors (2)
The bill provides major federal funding and a legal settlement that secures Zuni water infrastructure, land-in-trust and environmental protections, but does so by extracting broad Tribal waivers, imposing federal oversight and conditions, and restricting some local development and individual allottee rights.
Zuni Tribe members and tribal-lands residents gain $655.5M (plus $29.5M for O&M) and access to a Tribal Trust Fund to build and sustain water infrastructure (wells, treatment, distribution), improving local water access and enabling planning and economic development.
Zuni tribal government and members receive a legal settlement that clarifies and settles tribal water rights, preserves certain environmental/pollution claims, and conveys specified lands into trust, strengthening tribal control over water and land use and reducing litigation uncertainty.
Tribal members and nearby communities gain long-term environmental protections for Zuni Salt Lake and surrounding sanctuary lands by withdrawing roughly 92,364 acres from mining/leasing/disposal, restricting harmful activities, and authorizing monitoring and research to protect water quality and cultural resources.
Zuni tribal members as a whole must waive and release many historic claims as a condition of the settlement, limiting their ability to bring future litigation or seek additional remedies; some allotment interests are explicitly excluded from the Tribe's defined water rights.
The federal payments, Trust Fund deposits, and many withdrawals/expenditures are contingent on Secretary findings, deadlines, and approvals, creating risk that funding could be delayed, limited, or voided and reducing Tribal control over funds and timing.
Individual allottees and holders of separate allotment interests may be left without Tribal protections for their water rights, complicating access and creating potential inequities between allottees and Tribal members.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Ratifies a Zuni Tribe water-rights settlement, directs Interior to implement it, creates a trust fund, withdraws and protects Zuni Salt Lake Sanctuary lands, and limits new wells and certain land uses.
Introduced February 13, 2025 by Martin Heinrich · Last progress February 13, 2025
Establishes and implements a negotiated water-rights settlement for the Zuni Tribe in the Zuni River Stream System by authorizing and ratifying a May 1, 2023 Settlement Agreement, directing the Department of the Interior to execute it, and providing the legal framework and funding mechanisms needed to carry it out. It also withdraws and reserves federal lands around Zuni Salt Lake and the designated Sanctuary to protect water quantity and quality, cultural resources, and limits certain new uses (new wells, expanded grazing, many new rights-of-way and leases, and off-route motorized travel). Creates a trust and other settlement instruments to confirm tribal water rights, identifies specific allotments and procedures for handling patented allotments, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to implement and, where permitted, modestly modify the Agreement for consistency with the Act, and requires court entry of a Partial Final Judgment consistent with the Agreement and this statutory framework.