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S. HRG. 112–170

THE WIND RIVER IRRIGATION PROJECT—ISSUES

ARISING FROM AND CONTRIBUTING TO

DEFERRED MAINTENANCE AND OTHER

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 20, 2011

Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Vice Chairman 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

LORETTA A. TUELL, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

DAVID A. MULLON JR., Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 20, 2011 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of Senator Barrasso ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES

Anevski, John, Chief, Division of Water and Power, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 

U.S. Department of Interior; accompanied by Ray Nation, Deputy Superintendent for Trust, Wind River Agency and Karl Helvik, Rocky Mountain 

Regional Irrigation Engineer .............................................................................. 4

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7

C’Bearing, Sandra, Co-Chair, Water Resource Control Board, Northern Arapaho Tribe ............................................................................................................... 80

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 83

Collins, Gary, Wind River Irrigation Project Water User .................................... 76

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 78

Cottenoir, Mitchel, Acting Tribal Water Engineer Director, Wind River Water 

Resources Control Board, Eastern Shoshone Tribe ........................................... 22

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 24

Glick, Clinton, Rancher; Wind River Irrigation Project Water User ................... 71

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 73

Martel, Hon. Wesley, Co-Chairman, Eastern Shoshone Business Council, 

Eastern Shoshone Tribe of the Wind River Reservation .................................. 14

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16

O’Neal, William, Wind River Irrigation Project Water User; Member, 

Crowheart Bench Water Users Association ....................................................... 68

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 70

Trosper, Kenneth J.T., Member, Wind River Water Resources Control Board, 

Northern Arapaho Tribe ...................................................................................... 61 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63

Willow, Hon. Norman, Council Member, Northern Arapaho Business Council, 

Northern Arapaho Tribe, Wind River Reservation ........................................... 19

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20

APPENDIX

GAO (February 2006) report, entitled ‘‘INDIAN IRRIGATION PROJECTS—

Numerous Issues Need to Be Addressed to Improve Project Management 

and Financial Sustainability’’ ............................................................................. 89 

Goggles, Owen, Northern Arapaho Tribal Member and Honored Vietnam 

Veteran, prepared statement .............................................................................. 163

HKM (July 2008) final report, entitled ‘‘Engineering Evaluation and Condition Assessment—Wind River Irrigation Project .............................................. 142

Leonardi, Edward, President, Double L Ranch, Inc., prepared statement ......... 164

Norwood, Tom, prepared statement ....................................................................... 169

Parkhurst, Ray, prepared statement ..................................................................... 170

Steward, Hon. Jeb, U.S. Representative from Wyoming, letter, dated May 

4, 2011 ................................................................................................................... 87

Weber, Brett, Edna, Lori, and Russell, prepared statement ................................ 165

(1)

THE WIND RIVER IRRIGATION PROJECT—

ISSUES ARISING FROM AND CONTRIBUTING 

TO DEFERRED MAINTENANCE AND OTHER 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2011

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, 

Riverton, WY 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m. in the 

Robert A. Peck Arts Theatre, Central Wyoming College, Hon. John 

Barrasso, Vice Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,

U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING 

Senator BARRASSO. Good morning. Welcome one and all to this 

incredible center. I am thinking back over the last decade or so 

about the number of very significant events that have been held 

here on this campus, specifically in this very room. I am so grateful 

that President Joy McFarland allowed us to come here today for 

this hearing. 

This is a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs field hearing. I’m 

John Barrasso, the Vice Chairman of the Committee. Dan Akaka 

who is from Hawaii is the Chairman of the Committee. We work 

closely together in a bipartisan way to try to find solutions for 

problems, and it’s a privilege for me to work with him. He has allowed me to come and do this hearing today in my home state. He’s 

back in his home State of Hawaii and was unable to join us today. 

As you know, we’re out on recess this week so I’m traveling around 

the state of Wyoming, but I’ve heard from a number of members 

of our legislature about issues and wanted to come and hold this 

hearing today. 

So I want to welcome everyone to the hearing, which is entitled, 

‘‘The Wind River Irrigation Project—Issues Arising From and Contributing to Deferred Maintenance and Other Project Management 

Problems.’’ I want to begin by thanking all of our witnesses for 

coming today, not only for your willingness to attend the hearing 

but also for taking the time to prepare and submit the thoughtful 

written testimony. All written testimonies will be part of the permanent hearing of record. 

Our capable staff is here, as well, from the Indian Affairs Committee both representing the Republicans as well as the Democrats, 

so that this is a bipartisan staff event as well. We have a full-time 

2

Fremont County resident, Travis McNiven, who works on my staff 

in my Washington office. Travis is well-known to many of you. If 

you haven’t had a chance to know Travis or his family, I recommend that you do so and maybe get his direct phone line so that 

if there are specific issues in Fremont County, and there are ways 

we can be helpful, Travis is the guy to get in touch with. We see 

each other multiple times every day in Washington, and we want 

to be helpful in any way we can. 

I plan to keep my opening statement relatively brief so there will 

be time to hear from all the witnesses. We have three separate 

panels today, as well as some time for me to ask questions. 

I want to go into a little bit of the history surrounding the Wind 

River Irrigation Project. I think many of you know the history, but 

for some that don’t, it’s specifically for the record today. Located on 

the Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Eastern Shoshone 

and the Northern Arapaho tribes, the earliest phases of the Wind 

River Irrigation Project dates back to the 1870s. Construction of 

this irrigation system continued from 1905 until 1926, but the system was never completed to the full extent it was planned. I mean, 

it’s a fascinating history when you go through all of this. So like 

many Indian irrigation projects around the country, the Wind River 

project is not new. And as all of you know, it is not modern. 

Now today about two-thirds of the project serves the two Wind 

River tribes or their allottees, and the remaining one-third serves 

non-Indian irrigators. Of the 51,000 acres that were authorized for 

irrigation, currently only about 38,000 are assessed for operations 

and maintenance. The Wind River Project is ‘‘revenue generating,’’ 

and in theory is supposed to be self-sustaining, and we have studies and documents on all of those issues. 

Now, there are 15 other of these revenue generating Indian irrigation projects across the United States. There was a report from 

the Government Accounting Office issued about five years ago on 

the Reservation, and it says that here, on Wind River, there is a 

gap between the theory and the reality. The annual assessments do 

not cover the full cost of operations and the maintenance. Well, as 

this gap between theory and reality has existed, not just last year 

or the year before but for many years, and has resulted in a very 

significant accumulation of, as you know, deferred maintenance, 

and that is contributed to less than optimal system management. 

The Wind River Irrigation Project was intended to be a central 

component for the reservation economy, and when you go back and 

read the history from the 1800s, that was what the design and desired intent was, to be a central component of the reservation economy. Despite some of the shortcomings that we’re going to hear 

about this morning, it still is to this day a very important source 

of income and economic development. This project delivers muchneeded water for the agriculture economy, farmers and their crops, 

ranchers and their livestock. The problem is that it falls significantly short of its potential, and some recent government reports 

do not describe what I see as a positive trend. 

The conditions of the Wind River Irrigation Projects and other 

BIA irrigation projects around the country have been the subject of 

recent Inspector General and Government Accountability Office reports. The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 

3

2006, which I have here, detailing many deficiencies in the BIA irrigation projects, and the Wind River was one of the projects that 

was studied for the report. So I’m going to make that 2006 GAO 

report part of the hearing record, because its findings and its recommendations mark important points of reference for future 

trends. The report made what I call a preliminary finding that the 

cost of deferred maintenance at that time was over $84,000,000. 

Now, in 2008 they did a condition assessment, the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and revised this figure downward to almost 

$34.8 million for remediating the identified deficiencies of the 

project; still an incredibly large number. So even if this figure is 

more accurate—and I’m not sure that it is—then this is still a lot 

of money. One byproduct of significant deferred maintenance is 

that it can exacerbate a revenue generating problem which in turn 

can lead to still more deferred maintenance. Thus, over time, deferred maintenance can threaten a project’s long-term sustainability. 

The Government Accountability Office made other findings about 

irrigation project management besides just that of deferred maintenance. One of the things they talked about is a lack of technical 

expertise to support the projects and failure to adequately involve 

the project stakeholders; that is, you in this audience, the water 

users in the decisionmaking about the projects. One of the most 

ominous findings in the GAO’s 2006 report was that the BIA had 

no long-term plan to address these issues. Let me repeat that: The 

finding in 2006—it’s now 2011—was that the BIA had no long-term 

plan to address these issues. In its report, the GAO recommended 

that the Bureau of Indian Affairs conduct a complete condition assessment to determine the long-term sustainability of the project. 

And in 2008, the BIA completed the, quote, ‘‘condition assessment’’ 

for the Wind River Irrigation Project that I mentioned. Its assessment echoed several of the findings of the 2006 report. Most disturbing was that several diversion dams were given ‘‘critical deficiency’’ ratings and were recommended for replacement. So critical 

deficiencies were recommended in 2006 for replacement. Now, as 

defined in this assessment, a critical deficiency rating means that 

the feature will pose a threat to the health and/or safety of the user 

which may occur within two years or that an advanced deterioration hazard will result in the failure of the feature if not corrected 

within two years. This was a report that was over two years ago. 

So the implications of these deficiencies goes beyond inefficient irrigation. Hopefully, we’ll hear from the department this morning in 

how it intends to turn these problems around. 

At this point, I’m going to introduce the witnesses, and we have 

three separate panels. Panel one, we have John Anevski, the Chief 

of Division of Water and Power. He’ll be accompanied by Ray Nation, who’s the Deputy Superintendent for Trust at the Wind River 

Agency, and Karl Helvik, the Rocky Mountain Regional Irrigation 

Engineer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

On panel two, we’ll hear from Wes Martel, who has a powerpoint 

presentation and who is Co-Chair of Eastern Shoshone Business 

Council for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, followed by Norman Willow, Council Member for the Northern Arapaho Business Council 

for the Northern Arapaho Tribe. Mike Cottenoir will testify on beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jan 17, 2012 Jkt 070860 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\DOCS\70860.TXT JACK
4

half of the Wind River Water Resource Control Board for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, and he’ll be followed I believe by Sandra 

C’Bearing, the Co-Chair from the Wind River Water Resource Control Board for the Northern Arapaho Tribe. 

Finally, the third panel, we will hear from three individual water 

users on the Wind River Irrigation Project. First, Will O’Neal, 

Eastern Shoshone Tribal Member, and a member of the Crowheart 

Bench Water Users Association, will testify, followed by Clinton 

Glick, Eastern Shoshone tribal member, and Gary Collins, Northern Arapaho Tribal Member and former Tribal Water Engineer for 

the Wind River Water Control Board. 

Now, again I want to thank the witnesses for taking time out of 

their schedules to testify today before this Committee and for working with my staff on the hearing. I know this hearing is a considerable interest to people in this community, and obviously it is not 

possible to have every single stakeholder testify; therefore, we will 

keep the hearing record open for two weeks so that all interested 

parties can submit written statements, which will be part of the official hearing record for the United States Senate. And then after 

the hearing, you can also speak with David Mullon here on my 

staff. He was, as you know, on Senator Thomas’s staff, worked with 

Indian Affairs in this Committee, has a long, long history, knows 

this reservation well, and he can tell you how you can get your testimony and things to me. So since the written testimonies will be 

part of the record, I will ask each of you, please limit oral testimony to five minutes, which I know is sometimes hard to do, but 

I appreciate your efforts because we want to hear from a lot of people today. 

So with that, I invite the first panel to come forward and testimony to begin. Good morning. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN ANEVSKI, CHIEF, DIVISION OF WATER 

AND POWER, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED BY RAY

NATION, DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT FOR TRUST, WIND

RIVER AGENCY AND KARL HELVIK, ROCKY MOUNTAIN

REGIONAL IRRIGATION ENGINEER 

Mr. ANEVSKI. Good Morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is John 

Anevski, and I’m the Chief of the Division of Water and Power, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of Interior. I am pleased 

to provide the Department’s statement on the Wind River Irrigation Project. Let me begin with a brief discussion of the history of 

the BIA irrigation program. 

The BIA has been involved with Indian irrigation since the mid 

1800s starting with the Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project. 

The BIA is responsible for 15 revenue generating Indian irrigation 

projects with rivers delivering water to over 700,000 acres of land 

with 6,200 miles of canals and drains with over 55,000 irrigation 

structures. Because of the specific statutory authorities, the BIA 

charges operating and maintenance for these projects to both Indian and non-Indian customers to reimburse the Federal Government for their individual operation maintenance costs, and the 

Wind River project is one of these. Most of these 15 irrigation 

projects receive little or no appropriated funds which means these 

5

projects operate much like non-profit utilities. All the BIA irrigation projects, including this project, are vital economic contributors 

to the local communities and regions where they are located. 

The BIA operates irrigation projects under various laws, regulations, and policy guidance including Chapter 11 of Title 25 of the 

U.S. Code, part 171, Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations, 

Part 50, Chapter One, of the Indian Affairs Manual and the BIA 

Irrigation Handbook which was updated in August 2008. Most 

projects also have extensive legislative histories including the Wind 

River Project which has over 50 congressional appropriations and 

statutes. The BIA completed the operation and maintenance guidelines for the project in 2008. The BIA also consults with Eastern 

Shoshone, Northern Arapaho Tribes’ Joint Business Council and 

their staff and project water users on a regular basis regarding 

project matters. 

The project was authorized in 1905. The project has been operated and administrated by the BIA at Wind River Agency and consists of a total of 37,883 accessible acres. The project facilities include 67 miles of canals and laterals and 5,268 irrigation structures. The Crowheart and LeClaire units were organized to administer some of the lands in the project. The Regional Irrigation Engineer, who is the officer in charge of the project, administers the 

project through the project manager who manages, supervises, and 

administers daily operations in making of the projects. The BIA’s 

operation and maintenance of the project is funded entirely by investments appropriated from approximately 960 landowners and 

lessees, which include the tribes, individual Indians, and non-Indians. The current 2011 O&M assessment for the project varies from 

a low of $14 per acre at Crowheart Unit to $21 per acre at the 

LeClaire Unit with a majority of the project assessed at $20 an 

acre. The cost of operating and maintaining the project is approximately $715,000 annually. 67 percent of the land is Indian-owned 

and 33 percent is non-Indian-owned. The BIA recently completed 

several significant improvements of the project using congressional 

appropriated funds, including construction of our Wyoming and 

Montana projects. 

The BIA safety dams recently completed rehabilitation of 

Washakie and Ray Lake dams at approximately $15,000,000, and 

the BIA annually uses over $30,000 from this program to support 

ongoing safety dams to make and set the dams. In addition, congress earmarked $3.75 million in fiscal year 2006–2007 for irrigation construction of the project, and the state of Wyoming has 

matched these funds for the $3.5 million grant. 

The BIA is currently preparing for the upcoming irrigation season with deliveries anticipated to begin approximately May 1st and 

end sometime in late September. Once the season is complete, 

there are several maintenance activities to be performed, including 

the installation and/or replacement of several new turnouts, cleaning drains, installation of numerous drains, culvert crossings, and 

replacement of a check structure and crossing. 

For the 2011 season, the BIA is scheduled to bill water users 

O&M assessments totalling $670,000. As the project has a significant number of fractionated lands, lands with multiple owners, approximately 1,978 bills will be under BIA’s economic threshold of 

6

$25 and hence will not be mailed. In 2010 this amounted to just 

under $8,500. In recent years, project collection rate has hovered 

around 87 percent. However, in 2010, the project experienced a 92 

percent collection rate. The high historical collection rate has been 

in part due to the BIA’s implementation of the Debt Collection Improvement Act. 

The BIA is implementing several new initiatives to address the 

challenges of the Wind River Project and several of its other 

projects. Some of these initiatives are in response to the recommended remedial actions from various reports by the Department’s Officer Inspector General and Government Accountability 

Office. One recommendation made in these reports was the BIA 

should increase the level of technical support for project managers 

by putting these projects under the direct supervision of regional 

or central irrigation office staff or by implementing more stringent 

protocols for engineering review and approval of actions taken at 

the project. In February of 2007, the BIA established policies to ensure adequate technical oversight and assistance it has given to 

project managers of the BIA irrigation projects. These policies set 

requirements for Central Office Division of Water and Power staff, 

Regional Irrigation Engineers, and Irrigation Project Managers to 

follow for approve oversight, program reviews, assistance, review 

and approval and standards. 

In January 2011, the Rocky Mountain Region realigned irrigation personnel at the agency level to be under the direct supervision of the region for a BIA pilot project. This realignment will 

more effectively utilize personnel and resources, streamline processes such as contract and purchasing, decrease technical oversight, and reduce administrative costs so more money can be directly spent on operation and maintenance. In addition to these 

managerial reforms, the BIA is working more closely with water 

users to be responsive to their concerns and giving water users a 

greater role in project operations. 

In July 2006, policy was established requiring projects to hold 

water users meetings at least twice annually. This was done in 

order to provide for more transparent operations and is a method 

of keeping water users informed of our activities and how we are 

spending their money. In addition to collecting more feedback on 

management performance, the BIA is encouraging and empowering 

water users to make O&M activities for all or part of our project. 

Currently here at Wind River, there is a memorandum of agreement in place with the Crowheart Bench Water Users Association 

and a tripartite agreement with the LeClaire Unit and Riverton 

Valley Irrigation District. Approximately 32 percent of the successful acres on the project of O&M activities contracted out to these 

agreements. The BIA is also instituting several financial reforms to 

bring project revenues in line that needed expenditures. 

The BIA’s policy, similar to that of the Bureau of Reclamation, 

is that revenues from irrigators must fund the annual O&M operation maintenance with BIA irrigation projects. Historically, the 

BIA operation and maintenance rate increases were based in part 

on potential economic impact to the water users. Over time, this 

tempering of rates has led to budget deficiencies which contributed 

to the decline of the project, and it’s led to critical reviews of this 

7

practice by the Office of the Inspector General and the Government 

Accountability Office. In response of the concerns that have been 

raised, BIA has been working for several years to increase the assessment rate to a level that better represents the actual costs of 

operating and maintaining the project. To complement these financial reforms, the BIA has undertaken several initiatives to improve 

its maintenance management to ensure O&M assessments are 

spent effectively. 

Engineering condition assessments have been commissioned for 

most BIA irrigation projects with the Wind River scheduled to be 

completed in a 2008 (HKM Engineering Study). The 2008 study estimated a replacement value of the project to be approximately 

$93,000,000. Deferred maintenance for the project is estimated at 

$28 million. 

In 2008, the BIA revised its irrigation regulations of Title 25, 

Part 171, of the Code of Federal Regulations. The revision includes 

two key features that will include all of the BIA irrigation projects, 

annual assessment waivers and Incentive agreement. The annual 

assessment waivers are designed to allow for an easy method to 

waive O&M assessments for lands to which the BIA cannot deliver 

water. The past regulations required BIA to bill water users, and 

the water users had to appeal the bill to receive a refund. Consent 

agreements provide incentives to potentially to lessees to bring idle 

lands into production. Many BIA projects have lands that have become idle or have not been farmed for many years. Consent agreements allow the projects to waive the irrigation O&M assessment 

for up to three years if the landowner or lessees make improvements to the land to bring them back into production. These agreements benefit the landowners by improving the value of their land 

and will increase the project revenues. 

I thank you for your time and for your consideration on this 

issue. 

I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Anevski follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN ANEVSKI, CHIEF, DIVISION OF WATER AND POWER, 

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

Good morning Mr. Chairman, I am John Anevski, Chief, Division of Water and 

Power, Office of Trust Services, for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in the U.S. 

Department of the Interior (Department). I am pleased to provide the Department’s 

statement on the Wind River Irrigation Project (Project). Let me begin with a brief 

discussion of the history of the BIA’s irrigation program. 

The BIA has been involved with Indian irrigation since the mid-1800s starting 

with the Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project. The BIA is responsible for fifteen 

revenue-generating Indian irrigation projects that deliver irrigation water to over 

700,000 acres of land through 6,200 miles of canals and drains with over 55,000 irrigation structures. Because of specific statutory authorities the BIA charges operation and maintenance (O&M) assessments on these projects to both Indian and 

non-Indian customers, to reimburse the Federal Government for their individual 

O&M costs (the Project is one of these). Most of these fifteen projects receive little 

or no appropriated funds, which means these projects operate much like a non-profit 

private utility. All of the BIA’s irrigation projects, including the Project, are vital 

economic contributors to the local communities and regions where they are located. 

The BIA operates its irrigation projects under various laws, regulations and policy 

guidance, including chapter 11 of title 25 of the U.S. Code, part 171 of title 25 of 

the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 50, Chapter 1 of the Indian Affairs Manual, 

and the BIA National Irrigation Handbook (August 2008). Most projects also have 

extensive legislative histories, including the Wind River Project, which has over fifty 

8

congressional appropriations and statutes. The BIA completed O&M Guidelines for 

the Project in 2008. The BIA also consults with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern 

Arapahoe Tribes’ (Tribes) Joint Business Council and their staff, and Project water 

users on a regular basis regarding Project matters. 

The Project was authorized in 1905. The Project is operated and administered by 

the BIA, at Wind River Agency, and consists of a total of 37,883 assessable acres. 

The Project facilities include 467 miles of canals and laterals and 5,268 irrigation 

structures. The CrowHeart and LeClair units were organized to administer some of 

the lands in the Project. The Regional Irrigation Engineer, who is the Officer-inCharge of the Project, administers the Project through the Project Manager who 

manages, supervises and administers the daily operations and maintenance of the 

Project. 

The BIA’s operation and maintenance of the Project is funded entirely by assessments from approximately 960 landowners and lessees which include the Tribes, individual Indians and non-Indians. The current (2011) O&M assessment for the 

Project varies from a low of $14.00/acre at the CrowHeart unit to $21.00/acre at the 

LeClair Unit with the majority of the Project assessed at $20.00/acre. The cost to 

operate and maintain the Project is approximately $715,000 annually. Sixty-seven 

percent of the land is Indian owned and thirty-three percent is non-Indian owned. 

The BIA recently completed several significant improvements at the Project using 

congressionally appropriated funds for construction on our Wyoming and Montana 

projects. 

The BIA Safety of Dams program recently completed rehabilitation of Washakie and Ray Lake Dams at a cost of $15 million. And the BIA annually uses over 

$30,000 from this program to support ongoing Safety of Dams maintenance at these 

dams. In addition, Congress earmarked $3.75 million in Fiscal Year 2006 and 2007 

for irrigation construction at the Project and the State of Wyoming has matched 

these funds with a $3.5 million grant. 

The BIA is currently preparing for the upcoming irrigation season with deliveries 

anticipated to begin approximately May 1 and end sometime in late September. 

Once this season is complete there are several maintenance activities the BIA plans 

to perform, including the installation and/or replacement of several new turnouts, 

cleaning of drains, installation of numerous drain culvert crossings, and replacement of a check structure and crossing. 

For the 2011 irrigation season, the Project is scheduled to bill water users O&M assessments totaling $670,018. As the Project has a significant number of 

‘‘fractionated’’ lands, lands with multiple owners, approximately 1,978 bills will be 

under BIA’s economic threshold of $25, and hence, will not be mailed. In 2010, this 

amounted to just under $8,500. In recent years, the Project’s collection rate has hovered around 87 percent. However, in 2010, the Project experienced a 92 percent collection rate. The high historical collection rate has been, in part, due to the BIA’s 

implementation of the Debt Collection Improvement Act. 

The BIA is implementing several new initiatives to address challenges at the 

Wind River Project and several of its other projects. Some of these initiatives are 

in response to recommended remedial actions from various reports by the Department’s Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office. One 

recommendation made in those reports was that BIA should increase the level of 

technical support for project managers by putting these projects under the direct supervision of regional or central irrigation office staff or by implementing more stringent protocols for engineering review and approval of actions taken at the projects. 

In February 2007, BIA established policies to ensure adequate technical oversight 

and assistance is given to project managers of the BIA irrigation projects. These 

policies set requirements for Central Office Division of Water and Power staff, Regional Irrigation Engineers and Irrigation Project Managers to follow for improved 

oversight, program reviews, assistance, review and approval, and standards. 

In January 2011, the Rocky Mountain Region realigned irrigation personnel at 

the Agency level to be under the direct supervision of the Region for a BIA pilot 

project. This realignment will more effectively utilize personnel and resources, 

streamline processes such as contracting and purchasing, increase technical oversight, and reduce administrative costs so more money can be directly spent on 

O&M. In addition to these managerial reforms, the BIA is working more closely 

with water users to be responsive to their concerns and giving the water users a 

greater role in Project operations. 

In July 2006, policy was established requiring projects to hold water users meetings at least twice annually. This was done in order to provide for a more transparent operation and as a method to keep our water users informed of our activities 

and how we are spending their money. In addition to collecting more feedback on 

its management performance, the BIA is encouraging and empowering water users 

9

to take over O&M activities for all or parts of the Project. Currently, here at Wind 

River, there is a memorandum of agreement (MOA) in place with the Crowheart 

Bench Water User Association, and a tripartite agreement with the LeClair Unit 

and Riverton Valley Irrigation District. Approximately 32 percent of the assessable 

acres on the Project have the O&M activities contracted out through these agreements. The BIA is also instituting several financial reforms to bring project revenues in line with needed expenditures. 

The BIA’s policy, similar to that of the Bureau of Reclamation, is that revenues 

from irrigators must fund the annual O&M for BIA irrigation projects. Historically, 

the BIA tempered O&M rate increases based, in part, on the potential economic impact to water users. Over time, this tempering of rates resulted in budget deficiencies which contributes to the decline of the projects and has led to critical reviews of this practice by the Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office. In response to the concerns that have been raised, BIA has been 

working for several years to increase the assessed rate to a level that better represents the actual cost of operating and maintaining the projects. To complement 

these financial reforms the BIA is undertaking several initiatives to improve its 

maintenance management and ensure O&M assessments are spent effectively. 

Engineering condition assessments have been commissioned for most BIA irrigation projects, with the Wind River study being completed in 2008 (HKM Engineering Study). The 2008 study estimated the replacement value of the Project to be approximately $93 million. The deferred maintenance for the project is estimated at 

$28 million. 

In 2008, the BIA revised its irrigation regulations at title 25 part 171 of the Code 

of Federal Regulations. The revision includes two key features that were included 

to benefit all of the BIA irrigation projects, Annual Assessment Waivers and Incentive Agreements. The Annual Assessments Waivers are designed to allow for an 

easy method to waive the O&M assessments for lands to which the BIA cannot deliver water. The past regulations required BIA to bill the water user and the water 

user had to appeal the bill to receive a refund. Incentive Agreements provide incentive to potential lessees to bring idle lands into production. Many BIA projects have 

lands that have become idle and have not been farmed for many years. Incentive 

Agreements allow the project to waive the irrigation O&M assessment for up to 

three years if the landowner or lessee agrees to make improvements to the lands 

to bring them back into production. These agreements benefit the land owner by improving the value of their land and will increase the Project’s revenues. 

I thank you for your time and for your consideration of this issue. This concludes 

my prepared statement. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. I appreciate you being here. 

Where are you headquartered? 

Mr. ANEVSKI. I’m out of Washington, D.C. 

Senator BARRASSO. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. 

Looking around to see who is joining us, I see there are a number 

of members of our select committee on tribal relations that are part 

of our state legislature that are here, and they are the ones that 

initially contacted me about trying to hold this hearing today. The 

Co-Chairmen are Kale Case and Dale McOmie and other State 

Senators are Paul Bernard and Wayne Johnson. I see Wayne here 

today and Representative Patrick Goggles, who lives here on the 

reservation, and as well as representative Jeff Stewart. So these 

are people who have been focused on this. 

I have a number of questions. I let you go on a little bit longer 

than five minutes because I think people want to hear all of this 

information. I have a number of questions, and it’s kind of interesting because, you know, according to the BIA’s budget justification for the fiscal year 2012, BIA requested about 12 million, 11.93 

million, in appropriations for the 16 of these revenue generating 

Indian irrigation projects. It’s my understanding the BIA does not 

plan to direct any of the requested appropriations to the Wind 

River Irrigation Project for this fiscal year. Could you please help 

all of us here understand why the BIA does not plan to direct any 

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appropriations from 2012, the 12 million, to the Wind River Irrigation Project. 

Mr. ANEVSKI. Yes, sir. That fund is mostly for our mandatory 

payments which are by court order or legislative mandates that we 

have to fund on some irrigation projects. There’s actually legislation and/or court orders that tribes have taken us to court that we 

have to pay for trust land that are not leased on those projects. So 

we are paying for those, and that’s probably $3,000,000 or 

$4,000,000 of that fund. There’s other irrigation related water 

rights that we’re paying out of that fund. We do have to pay for 

the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, which is approximately 

$4,000,000. We pay the operation and maintenance, and that again 

is by the 1962 Act with the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project which 

requires us to pay that fund. And we also fund part of the irrigation billing and collection system for our 15 or 16 revenue generating projects. So the billing and collection and debt management 

is paid for by appropriated funds out of that account. So there’s a 

lot of different things in that account, but in the past, back in the 

1970s, 1980s, maybe early 1990s, some of those O&M funds were 

going out to some projects, but as the mandatory funds costs kept 

increasing, we lost a discretionary amount to that fund. 

Senator BARRASSO. As I mentioned in the opening statement, one 

of the most ominous findings in the 2006 report was that the BIA 

had no long-term plan to address the deferred maintenance issue. 

So I understand to date we still have not, through the BIA, produced a long-term plan. When can we expect the Bureau of Indian 

Affairs to produce a long-term plan to address the deferred maintenance issues? 

Mr. ANEVSKI. To be honest, we have been addressing it slowly. 

The critical deferred list and the HCAM reports, that’s the first 

step, especially at Wind River here. We’re actually working our 

way down the priority list as we have funding. We have that 3.7 

million dollars earmarked for the projects so we’ve been using 

those funds. So the condition assessments were needed to help us 

develop the list. So all our projects we’re working on developing the 

high priority items to fix the list. And the problem is, if we’re just 

rely on the revenues, the O&M assessments, operation assessments, like the Wind River here, the full cost would be around 35 

to $40 an acre versus the $20 just to really go and rehabilitate it, 

which would be an economic disaster for all the farmers. So we’re 

trying to limit our O&M rates, and we’re slowly—you know, the appropriated funds we did receive we’re slowly going to work on fixing the projects as best we can and keep the economics reasonable 

for farmers. 

Senator BARRASSO. Words like slowly and working down the list, 

that’s not something that the folks here—people in Wyoming kind 

of like when they see a problem, they fix it, and move onto the next 

thing. So I’m trying to figure out if you’re going to come out with 

a long-term plan, and I was wondering what the process is going 

to be to put this long-term plan together. And this might have been 

2006. I don’t know if you were doing this job in 2006. We’re now 

five years down the line when they said we’re going to have a longterm plan. Can you help us along? 

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Mr. ANEVSKI. And that was the end of my first year there in D.C. 

Like I said, the condition assessments are the first part. And part 

of the IG reports talk about sustainability of the projects and recommend we do a sustainability study of which condition assessments are one part of it. But we still would have to look at the economics and a lot of other things which would cost us a lot of money 

which we don’t have. We haven’t been focusing, I’ll be honest, and 

I guess that’s something we should really focus on. My division, 

Central Office Division of Water and Power, will be looking at that 

and as we staff up will be working to develop a long-term plan. 

Senator BARRASSO. Yes, I’ve noticed—I’ve only been in the Senate for about three and a half years, but I noticed there doesn’t 

seem to be a lot of focus, throughout, a long-term plan for so many 

things. And I would recommend to you to try to get to that and 

move that up in the priority list of things that need to be done, because it’s troubling when you read an assessment, even the findings from the 2008 condition assessment, it’s nearly 77 percent of 

the project units reviewed received critical deficiency ratings, and 

you’re talking 2008, now 2011. That could potentially mean a 

threat to the health and safety of the users, and those are the 

things that people are concerned about and say what is really going 

on here. This isn’t the highest of the high up. In the written testimony, as I think you stated, there was a program with safety of 

the dams that completed the rehab of the Washakie and Ray Lake 

dams at a cost of about 15 million. What does the BIA plan to do 

to deal with the structure described with the other structures described in 2008 as really critically deficient? What can the BIA do 

in the interim to address these deficiencies while you’re working on 

the long-term plan? 

Mr. ANEVSKI. On the critical list, annually we work on the list, 

and we work with the tribes and water users and talk about what 

we’re going to be doing. And we’re using some of the appropriated 

funds, and we’ll be working our way down the list to fix those 

issues. 

Senator BARRASSO. I ask how it is, how do you involve the tribes 

and involve the users, and I think you said we work with the 

tribes. I’m curious as to what exactly you do so people who are 

here--

Mr. ANEVSKI. Well, we do have two water user meetings a year, 

there are two different locations each time at Crowheart and 

Ethete, and then the regional—the agency staff actually attends 

the tribal water engineers office meetings monthly, is it? 

Mr. NATION. Actually twice a month. 

Mr. ANEVSKI. So we’re meeting with them twice a month. 

Senator BARRASSO. I wonder if you could introduce your two 

guests. Maybe everybody in the audience knows them, but if you 

wouldn’t mind. 

Mr. ANEVSKI. Ray Nation, he’s the Deputy Superintendent for 

Trust at the Wind River Agency stationed in Fort Washakie. Karl 

Helvik is the engineer and also the officer in charge of the project, 

and he’s located in Billings, Montana, at the Rocky Mountain Regional Office. 

Senator BARRASSO. Just a couple of additional questions. The 

2006 GAO report found that additional water storage and improved 

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efficiency were needed to meet the demands for water; however, according to the BIA, operation and maintenance fees may not be 

used for capital improvements. So how does the BIA estimate the 

accommodation of additional water demands, and given that from 

1926 when they stopped, they never really got the full completion 

of what was envisioned for this area? 

Mr. ANEVSKI. Right. And I probably can’t fully answer that question, but when we fix the dams, both dams were under restrictions 

that we could only store water to a certain level. So the Washakie 

dam now we can store water to the full height. And Ray Lake’s, 

that was the same thing, had a restriction on it for many years, 

and now that it’s been fixed we can store more water there. But 

adding more stored facilities, there are not really any plans for 

that. 

Senator BARRASSO. Do you believe the Wind River Irrigation 

Project can meet the Wind River demands with out additional capital? 

Mr. NATION. No, Senator, it can’t. Normally during the spring irrigation season, if we get a late runoff, the Crowheart Unit has to 

wait in order to build water in order to flush the system and get 

water out the 1st of May. The same with the Ray Canal, the Cooley 

system which is around Fort Washakie, depending on how spring 

runoff is, we have to wait for Washakie to build up storage. So depending on the spring runoff, when that comes, during the month 

of September normally Washakie reservoir is out of water and 

Washakie reservoir serves water to, like, around 20,000 acres. So 

the month of September, there’s hardly any water in the system for 

roughly 20,000 acres of land. We go to stock water. We do need 

storage in the Little Wind drainage for Ray Coolidge and subagency. Crowheart also during the month of September doesn’t 

have a lot of water so it also needs storage some place upstream. 

To talk about your question on long-term planning, right now 

we’ve got kind of a three-year plan. We’ve got 12 major structures 

that are going to be rehabilitated using the state and the federal 

funds. But for long-term planning, that’s going to take planning between the government and the tribes, because as you know, the 

BIA can’t go to Congress and get money. We can’t go to Wyoming 

and get money. Because of that and with the help from the tribes, 

that’s how we got this $7,000,000 so the tribes are going to be part 

of this big planning process as far as rehabilitating the project. But 

for right now, like I said, our three-year plan is to do the 12 structures, possibly do some piping of some laterals, and then with our 

BIA staff, we plan on picking away at some of the other structures 

that are identified in the HCAM report that are priority, realizing 

that some of those structures we don’t have the power to do so 

we’re going to have to contract some of that out. So that’s kind of 

our three-year plan, and then the long-term plan is going to be up 

to Congress and the tribes being able to lobby congressmen for 

more money. 

Senator BARRASSO. Just some last follow-up questions on all of 

this—Karl, if you want to jump in on any of this, feel free to answer. I know there’s concerns among the water users in this room 

about how the BIA spends operation and maintenance fees, and I 

know there’s concerns that BIA spends some of these operation 

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maintenance fees on administrative expenses that maybe ought to 

be covered under the agency’s own appropriations. There are also 

concerns that the administrative expenses make up too high of a 

percentage of the fees as well. So can you please give the Committee a breakdown of how the BIA spends its operation and maintenance fees that it collects from the water users on this irrigation 

project? 

Mr. ANEVSKI. I guess generally I’d like to point out the administrative fees, a lot of times people look at all salaries and a lot of 

the salaries are going to the people doing operation and maintenance, the ditch riders, the maintenance workers and stuff. So 

those really need to be split out that they’re operation and maintenance versus admin. We do admin fees which is like a project manager and accounting techs running the office. I don’t know if you 

wanted to——

Senator BARRASSO. Ray, do you want to——

Mr. NATION. Yes, for some reason, there’s people thinking that 

we spend a lot of money on salaries, and we actually do but realizing that under our operations——

Senator BARRASSO. Let the record reflect that they do. 

Mr. NATION. We do. Yes. We have four ditch riders that operate 

and maintain and deliver water. 

Senator BARRASSO. On the ground. 

Mr. NATION. That’s $134,000. As far as maintenance, we have 

two equipment operators, and they do nothing but run equipment, 

put in head gates, clean out head gates, put in laterals. And their 

costs are $112,000. Those are salaries, but those people are needed 

to operate the system. Our administrative staff is $147,000. That’s 

for the project manager or civil engineer, whatever you want to 

refer to that person as, and also our accounting technician. Those 

two positions are hired. You have to have a supervisor in order to 

conduct day-to-day work schedules for water delivery and maintenance. So that’s kind of why our salaries seem to be high, but it’s 

not that they’re getting paid to do nothing. They’re out there delivering water and helping operate and maintain the system. 

Senator BARRASSO. I think it’s helpful for you to describe where 

the salaries go and water on the ground and people and different 

places. Karl, do you have anything that you’d like to add? 

Mr. HELVIK. Yes, I’d like to add that the project manager of those 

two accounting technicians is necessary because we do the billing 

and collection for the entire project out to those ones that we contracted so we’re providing that service to everybody. 

Senator BARRASSO. Well, Ray, John and Karl, I appreciate you 

being here. Thank you for testifying. We’ll make your written statements part of the record. If you have anything you’d like to add, 

any of the questions I’ve asked, please feel free to include that, and 

we’ll keep the record open for the next two weeks. Thanks for being 

here. 

Mr. NATION. Thank you. 

Mr. ANEVSKI. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. I’d like to call up our second panel, please. 

Thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule to be 

with us today. We’re going to start, if you could, with Wes Martel, 

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who is Co-Chairman, Eastern Shoshone Business Council, Eastern 

Shoshone Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Fort Washakie.

STATEMENT OF HON. WESLEY MARTEL, CO–CHAIRMAN,

EASTERN SHOSHONE BUSINESS COUNCIL, EASTERN

SHOSHONE TRIBE OF THE WIND RIVER RESERVATION 

Mr. MARTEL. Senator Barrasso, I’d like to start off by thanking 

you for holding this field hearing. I’d to thank the tribal relations 

committee from the state legislature for their support in this event 

coming to Riverton, and we really appreciate this. 

So Honorable Senator Barrasso, distinguished guests, and Committee staff and council, I come before you today to offer comments 

related to the Wind River Irrigation Project and other management 

problems. Let me begin by noting that for all things living on this 

great earth, water is our livelihood. As tribes we strive to maintain 

our culture and spiritual beliefs, and water is that special resource 

that sustains us and allows us to take our place destined to provide 

a positive future and hope and energy to our people. 

Government beginnings began with the signing of the treaty of 

1863 whereby Shoshone tribe was designated over 44,000,000 acres 

of land. This treaty was followed by subsequent treaties which narrowed our land base to the present day acres of approximately 2.2 

million acres. Problems started when congress passed the Reclamation Act of 1902 whereby well over a million acres of this reservation was opened up for homesteading. This brought a morass of 

issues, challenges, and confronts to triable sovereignty, which we 

now confront on a daily basis. In 1905 to the present, Bureau of 

Reclamation’s attention and resources were devoted mainly to the 

homesteaders. 

Since 1905, over $77,000,000 was put into irrigation works and structures north of the Big Wind while approximately $6,000,000 

has been put into the BIA project. The Indian moneys that were 

earmarked for Indian irrigation improvements were diverted to the 

reclamation fund thus the huge disparity. In addition, the Bureau 

of Reclamation exploited tribal resources without proper consent 

and approval, and the tribe just recently were awarded $33,000,000 

for partial compensation of this misdeed. Another affront to the 

Federal/Tribal trust relationship is the Bureau of Reclamation’s 

stance that section eight of the 1905 Act requires them to administer resources according to state law. Virtually all Tribes in this 

country oppose this infringement upon a valuable trust resource. 

Based on the history surrounding the BIA reclamation project, 

the Joint Business Council and the Wind River Water Resources 

Control Board have four major consequences of federal and state 

management on the Wind River Basin that require separate research and investigation. These are federal appropriations of tribal 

reserve water rights to serve non-Indian hydropower interest, use 

of tribal funds to construct major federal and non-federal irrigation, 

storage and hydropower facilities on the Wind River Reservation, 

diversion of tribal revenues into the U.S. Treasury for use in paying costs of the irrigation project, O&M on existing canals and surveying costs of the Wind River Reclamation Project from 1906 to 

1942, and diversion of tribal water by the State of Wyoming based 

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on use of Wyoming water law to declare surplus conditions, depriving tribal use of the water resource from 1989 until the present. 

The federal and state use of tribal water and tribally funded irrigation and power facilities has deprived the tribes exercising the 

right to manage and use the water for their economic development 

and community well-being. In addition, these actions and diversion 

of tribal funds have resulted in environmental damage, economic 

damage, and lost opportunities for economic development. Research 

indicates that the users have overpaid O&M fees for the Wind 

River Irrigation Project. Initial legislation authorized the Riverton 

project in 1905, formerly the Wind River Irrigation Project which 

is no relation to the tribal system, specified that the tribes were 

only to pay $150,000 in a one-time payment for O&M fees for the 

tribal system. This could mean the tribe overpaid the O&M fees for 

the Wind River Irrigation Project by millions of dollars. 

My initial stint as an elected official of the Shoshone Tribe began 

in 1979, not too long after the state of Wyoming filed the Big Horn 

Adjudication of 1977. These water boards made us realize the extreme importance exercising tribal sovereignty wisely to protect our 

people and our future. Eventually, there are two major activities 

that must begin immediately in order to fully pursue a diversion 

of tribal water and funds. Research and strategy development on 

head water issues including economic, environmental, legal, social, 

cultural, and political impact of diversion of tribal water, continued 

strengthening and reorganization of the tribal water management 

function, including the Office of the Tribal Water Engineer and the 

Wind River Water Resources Control Board. 

We have been building our technical administrative capability to 

make stronger our tribal government and strengthen families and 

communities to bring progress and positive economic impact to our 

reservation and our region. As you well know, Wind River ag. and 

livestock, recreation, and tourism are sectors of the bulk of our 

economy. The further development of nonrenewable resources—

wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and hydropower allows us a 

major role to play in the energy security of this nation as well as 

reducing our dependence on foreign energy sources. The most important resource in our future growth is water. 

Our purpose today is to bring respect and dignity to the trust obligation. When our four fathers signed the treaties asserting our 

homelands, it was not a grant of rights to us but a grant of rights 

from us. The permanent homelands established by treaty were 

meant to uphold the intent to evolve over time and embark on a 

path assuring livelihood and advanced civilization. 

The GAO’s report of July 3rd of 1996 and February 3rd, 2006, 

address various issues surrounding the allocation and repayment of 

costs constructing federal water projects including the allocation of 

these costs among the projects’ various purposes and irrigators of 

their share of the costs. We have testified over the decade at many 

sessions of the Senate Select Committee of Indian Affairs and now 

the Senate Committee of Indian Affairs all to no avail. It is my solemn wish that this distinguished committee with leadership and 

foresight begin and deliver a process to not only ensure that the 

sovereign Indian nations of this country have reliable sources of 

16

water but to acknowledge the trust obligation exists in relation to 

the most critical resource, water. Thank you for your time, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Martel follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. WESLEY MARTEL, CO-CHAIRMAN, EASTERN

SHOSHONE BUSINESS COUNCIL, EASTERN SHOSHONE TRIBE OF THE WIND RIVER

RESERVATION


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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much. Norman Willow is 

next, the Honorable Norman Willow is Council Member, Northern 

Arapaho Business Council, Northern Arapaho Tribe, Wind River 

Reservation, Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Thank you very much. 


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STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN WILLOW, COUNCIL MEMBER, 

NORTHERN ARAPAHO BUSINESS COUNCIL, NORTHERN 

ARAPAHO TRIBE, WIND RIVER RESERVATION 

Mr. WILLOW. Greetings to all and all the fellow residents within 

the boundaries of the reservation. This affects us all, and I think 

we started out with irrigation. And it goes way back. Trying to 

make farmers out of us. They allocated land, allocated water, and 

we have a senior water right to this land here. And that’s not being 

looked at like the way we want it to be looked at, and there was 

Indian appropriated money when they built these systems. We 

don’t even have a right to vote on this irrigation systems, but we 

come here to ask the Federal Government to unstrangle us with 

the state and the state law that’s been passed down onto us. The 

water is necessary for agriculture, ceremony, and healthy rivers. 

We have a decree where the court awarded 500,000 acre feet of 

water, with the State of Wyoming suing us but we won, you know. 

We can’t use our water rights on whatever because of poor irrigation system. It’s outdated, lack of maintenance, and our systems 

are 20 to 30 percent deficient. And in the interest of native 

irrigators have been promoted by the state that should be tribal 

members benefitting, and a former U.S. Senator, Wyoming Supreme Court Judge explained the state policy that you look at Coolidge, looked at LeClaire, there’s a big water difference right before 

our eyes, full capacity, hardly any capacity on our side. And then 

the injustice we can see it right before our eyes as one failed policy, 

it has at least three fields a year without any compensations to the 

tribe, the senior water right holders. 

I have a little different view than all other, and we shouldn’t 

take our system for under 638, because it’s not even deliverable. 

Our lands are being reclassified because they’re not irrigated, but 

that’s because of the system. The system is not working. We can’t 

accept the reclassification of the lands due to nondeliverable water. 

We’re not using the land because water can’t be delivered. Changing our class six to class one funding and no funding, the Federal 

Government needs to evaluate things reservation-wide, realize 

what’s happening here. We need to see our manager, our water office. And, you know, this is my interpretation of what’s been going 

on, and you have all these people reporting. Well, a lot of them 

isn’t happening. They say they have big plans. You’ve got to excuse 

me, I’m recovering from cancer, and I had surgery. Anyway, you 

know, how can we compensate the senior water right, and that’s 

the tribe’s. We’re being left out considerably. I know that these 

farmers, the irrigators all around here. They have a different view 

than I do, but, you know, we need to work this thing out. We need 

to be recognized a little more, and we need to be compensated because we are the senior water right holders here. 

And in closing, I don’t want to take up too much time. I wish everybody well, and I would like to see some kind of compensation 

coming to the tribe, because a lot of it was done by Indian people, 

Indian appropriated money, yet we’re not using it. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Willow follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN WILLOW, COUNCIL MEMBER, NORTHERN

ARAPAHO BUSINESS COUNCIL, NORTHERN ARAPAHO TRIBE, WIND RIVER RESERVATION


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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. And as you say, we want to get 

whole different viewpoints so I appreciate you expressing your 

thoughts and concerns here. Thank you. 

Our next witness is Mitchel Cottenoir, Acting Tribal Water Engineer Director, Wind River Water Resources Control Board for the 

Eastern Shoshone Tribe, Fort Washakie. Thank you. 


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STATEMENT OF MITCHEL COTTENOIR, ACTING TRIBAL 

WATER ENGINEER DIRECTOR, WIND RIVER WATER

RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, EASTERN SHOSHONE TRIBE 

Mr. COTTENOIR. Senator Barrasso, I’d like to thank you for this 

opportunity to address this hearing on behalf of the Wind River 

Water Resource Control Board. According to the GAO report dated 

February 6th, the Wind River irrigation project was authorized for 

construction in 1905, but construction was never completed. Wind 

River Irrigation Project comprises of three storage facilities, 11 canals, and 377 miles of canal. These facilities provide water for 

38,300 acres of which 67 percent is Indian owned and 33 percent 

is non-Indian owned. 

These 38,300 irrigated acres are assessed operation and maintenance fees to finance the irrigation project’s operation, maintenance, of administrative functions. These assessments have historically been low, but over the last 20 years these rates have risen 

approximately 91 percent from a low of $10.90 in 1991 to $20 in 

2011. Even with the rising assessment fees, little rehabilitation efforts have been made. According to the 1994 NRCE project assessment and plan, no project wide rehabilitation of the delivery system has occurred since the 1930s. According to that study, huge deferred maintenance over many years, 60 percent or 1,200 structures were in need of repair or replacement, and 45 percent were 

190 miles of canals and laterals needed repair or reconstruction. 

According to the study, structure failures were routine resulting in 

progressive loss of control of project water and the catastrophic failure of segments of the delivery system were coming. 

According to the 1994 NRCE project assessment and plan, due 

to the project’s current configuration, it only has 66 acres of irrigated land per mile of canal. In comparison Midvale Irrigation District has over 160 acres per mile of canal. As a general guideline, 

Bureau of Reclamation suggests that irrigation projects in the region need to have at least 140 acres of irrigated land for mile of 

canal to be economically self-sufficient. As a result of the poor delivery performance, that has contributed to the progressive deterioration quality and water users ability to pay assessment. It is apparent that the Wind River Irrigation System cannot be considered 

self-sufficient. 

Conditions on the Wind River Irrigation Project sadly continue to 

deteriorate, and little has changed since the 1994 NRCE report, the 

2006 GAO report, and the 2008 HCAM assessment. 

In 2003, the Wyoming legislature passed House Bill 144. House 

Bill 144 allowed the tribes to participate in state funding toward 

water development projects. This bill is strongly supported by both 

the Joint Business Council and the Water Resource Control Board. 

In 2004 in order to facilitate the rehabilitation of the Wind River 

Irrigation Project, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho 

Tribes through the efforts of the Wind River Water Resource Control Board applied to and were granted 3.5 million dollar grant 

from the Wyoming Water Development Commission to aid in the 

rehabilitation of the irrigation structures that were in dire need of 

repair or replacement. This state appropriation was a 50 percent 

grant, required an additional 3.5 million in matching funds before 

the state funds could be utilized. Once again through the efforts of 

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the Wind River Water Resource Control Board in conjunction with 

the efforts of Senator Mike Enzi, a federal appropriation of 3.72 

million dollars was secured in 2005 and 2006 as matching funds for 

3.5 million and state funds. 

To date, four major irrigation structures have been replaced and 

another rehabilitated at a cost of 1.63 million dollars. These structures include the Johnstown and left-hand ditch, diversion structures on the Big Wind River, the left-hand ditch wasteway, the 

Coolidge Canal Trout Creek diversion structure, and the Mill Creek 

Great Canal crossing structure. 

Currently there are two diversion structures on the Wind River 

that are in the design phase. These structures are the Ray Canal, 

South Fork, the Coolidge Canal, and Little Wind diversion structures. Incorporated in these designs, structures are fish ladders 

and fish streams. The fish passage will mitigate the loss of hundreds of thousands of fish to the irrigation system. The fish passage project is a combined effort between the tribes, the U.S. Fish 

and Wild Life Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Trout Unlimited, and the State of Wyoming. It is hoped that these structures 

will be designed and ready for the fall 2011 construction season. 

In April of this year, the Wind River Water Resource Control 

Board elected engineering firms to design the remaining nine structures of the Wind River Irrigation Project priority list that was utilized to secure the federal and state funding. This list was compiled 

by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Tribal Water Engineer. Depending on available funds as many of these structures 

will be replaced or rehabilitated. It is hoped that these structures 

will also be designed and ready for the fall 2011 construction season. 

Without the efforts of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes through the Wind River Water Resource Control Board, 

the current rehabilitation of the Wind River Irrigation Project 

would not be occurring. 

Once the federal and state appropriations are completed, the 

Wind River Water Resource Control Board plans to pursue additional funding from both the Federal Government and State of Wyoming. The tribes and the Wind River Water Resource Control 

Board request the aid and assistance of both Senators Barrasso 

and Enzi and the Select Committee on Indian Affairs to help secure future funding on ongoing rehabilitation of the Wind River Irrigation System. As you know, estimates of the rehabilitation range 

from a low of $70,000,000 to a high in the range of $90,000,000. 

With that, I’d like to conclude, and thank you for allowing me to 

participate in this hearing. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cottenoir follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MITCHEL COTTENOIR, ACTING TRIBAL WATER ENGINEER

DIRECTOR, WIND RIVER WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, EASTERN SHOSHONE

TRIBE


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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. I appreciate you being here. Our 

next witness is Kenneth J.T. Trosper who is a member of the Wind 

River Water Resources Control Board for the Northern Arapaho 

Tribe, Fort Washakie, Wyoming. 

STATEMENT OF KENNETH J.T. TROSPER, MEMBER, WIND 

RIVER WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, NORTHERN 

ARAPAHO TRIBE 

Mr. TROSPER. I would like to thank you, Honorable John 

Barrasso, as well as other member of the Unites States Senate 

Committee on Indian Affairs for allowing us to bring in our issues 

concerning the Wind River Irrigation Project. My name is Kenneth 

Trosper. I serve on the Northern Arapaho side of the Wind River 

Water Resource Control Board. 


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I would like to offer my testimony on the shortfalls of the irrigation project and the BIA in protecting the natural resources of the 

Wind River watershed. The project diversions divert more water 

than is called for simply to push the required water down the canals. This is done because of the terrible condition of the entire system. There has been little conservation attempts or major rehab 

other than what the water board and tribes have secured funding 

for. 

As a young man, I listened as my grandmother Margaret talked 

about happier times with my grandfather before the war. She told 

me of fishing the Little Wind and the great fishing the river provided. She talked of them sitting on the bank of their favorite fishing hole near Ethete and catching enough cutthroat trout to feed 

the whole family as well as others with nothing more than a willow 

pole, hook and line, and bait. 

Today’s a different story. The native Yellowstone cutthroat trout 

have all disappeared in the Little Wind River. Cutthroat need cold, 

clean water which is something the lower Little Wind can no longer 

provide in the summer months due to the inefficiency of the Wind 

River Irrigation Project as well as a lack of storage and conservation. 

If this project is maintained as it should have been, upgraded as 

other projects are, provided conservation measures like other systems, perhaps then the Little Wind wouldn’t be a warm tepid bacteria-laced stream in the summer but instead a clean, living river 

like the one my grandparents enjoyed. 

Another area of concern related to the inefficiency of the irrigation project is that of the native sauger. Although sauger were once 

found in most of the major Wyoming river basins, according to 

Craig Amadio of the Wind River Water sauger Study, the Wind 

River Reservation supports one of the few remaining genetically 

pure sauger populations in the western United States. And according to the study, the Wind River population is estimated at 4,300 

fish. A recent Wyoming Game and Fish State Wildlife Action Plan 

lists the sauger as one of Wyoming species of greatest conservation 

need. 

This population is threatened because of the bottleneck created 

by the subagency diversion and the low flows below the diversion 

in the summer months. There is also the chance of potential killoffs from flows insufficient to dilute any discharge or accidental 

contamination. The sauger is already lost above the diversion itself 

since it can no longer migrate past this diversion. 

Along with the sauger, above the diversion a fresh water mussel, 

lam sillic sole, important to our native culture was once found all 

along the Little Wind is now only found a few miles below the subagency diversion. The mussel uses the sauger to promulgate and 

like the sauger has disappeared above the subagency diversion and 

is threatened below. The Wind River and Little Wind River would 

benefit greatly from mainstream flows. 

Within the tribal water code, mainstream flow is listed as one of 

the 15 beneficial uses. Not only would fish and wildlife benefit but 

ground water recharge, municipal and domestic water, as well as 

water quality. A healthy viable river benefits everyone; however, 

without full rehab of the system, conservation, and future storage 

63

projects, it would be extremely difficult to maintain flows in the 

Little Wind to protect our fisheries while providing current irrigation needs. Thank you. That concludes my statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Trosper follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KENNETH J.T. TROSPER, MEMBER, WIND RIVER WATER

RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, NORTHERN ARAPAHO TRIBE


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Senator BARRASSO. I’d like to ask a couple of questions, and 

maybe we can start with Council leadership of the Tribes and then 

go to the specific folks about the water resources. Let’s start with 

the two of you, Mr. Martel and Mr. Willow. For the record, there’s 

been some discussion about the economic development components 

of this. Explain how the tribes specifically rely on the Wind River 

Irrigation Project to foster economic growth and generate income 

for the tribes, and either of you or both of you can answer. 

Mr. MARTEL. Well, right now, Senator, economic growth from the 

river comes through agriculture and livestock. Like I mentioned in 

my testimony, we have several producers and farmers and ranchers 

on the project, tribal members and non-tribal members. We believe 

that storage is on the horizon, has to be, and in previous discussions we have had with the three irrigation districts a few years 

back, there were two issues we all agreed upon. And one of them 

was need to rehab the project and number two was storage. I think 

that’s important when we sit down with Midvale, LeClaire, Riverton Valley, and agree on some issues that are going to be good 

for this basis. We believe that hydropower is going to be part of 

that economic future. We believe that water leasing in some form 

is going to be part of that economic progress. Recreation and tourism is not a major source of our economic development, but as we 

progress with the great country, we’re blessed with recreation and 

tourism would be a big attraction. 

Senator BARRASSO. Anything you want to add, Mr. Willow? 

Mr. WILLOW. Sorry, I don’t have as much air as these guys do. 

Yes, our waters are being used to capacity due to the poor irrigaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jan 17, 2012 Jkt 070860 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\70860.TXT JACK

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tion system. There’s a lot of lands idle that could help the crops. 

That’s one way we can have economic stability there, but it’s just 

that the water is short on our side. And like tourism and recreation, recreation use, we just feel that we own all the water within 

the reservation and boundaries. You know, I feel personally that 

Boysen Dam and recreation there, we should be a rich tribe from 

the water coming off the reservation and going to the irrigators 

north of Big Wind. We’re kind of looking at other structure that’s 

needed because we are the senior right holders; yet, there’s no compensation or no recognition that to the tribe. But due to poor irrigation system, we can’t use water to full capacity. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. That follows my next question for both of you. 

The GAO report said a couple things. One was that the Bureau of 

Indian Affairs is not accountable to water users, and I’m wondering 

what steps the BIA might take to increase involvement of the 

water users. We heard from the last panel about meetings that are 

held here and their involvement. So if just you could share with us, 

is the BIA responsive to the needs and are their ways that we 

could improve upon that? 

Mr. MARTEL. Well, Senator Barrasso, you know, the management 

of the system on both sides of the river is not beneficial to the overall wide and stable use of our water resource. You know, the funding that has been coming down to the tribes, the BIA management 

of the system, sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to water levels 

in our reservoirs, and so we really have to take more control of 

that. Getting back to your previous question about the economic 

side of it, we have got to do that, and part of that is our future’s 

land. We have over 50,000 acres of future land that we think the 

Riverton east project, which is just downstream from us here in 

Riverton, is a very viable project. The Crowheart north and south 

projects are very valuable projects, and so in order to be able to get 

the full beneficial use out of our water, we have to make sure the 

systems are managed and administered properly. We just think 

there’s got to be a lot more interaction between the BIA and the 

tribes. I for one think that we as tribes have got to take it to administrative wear-with-all to be able to take that system over and 

be able to manage it and administer it on our own. But, of course, 

like Mr. Willow mentioned funding is a very important part of that. 

So we need to make sure as we continue this dialogue not only 

with the Committee but also with our congressional delegation. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Willow, anything you’d like to add? 

Mr. WILLOW. Well, I think it would be more sufficient to have a 

water crew that we have to use the AFR on the reservations, but, 

yeah, there’s a lot of things said here that aren’t happening. You 

know, there’s a lot of good thought but things are just not happening, and we’re pretty frustrated. We continue to try to benefit 

our people in some way to use the water and to respect the water, 

you know, its life. But, everything revolves around water, and we’re 

trying not to, I guess, disrespect water. But we’re running into a 

lot of trouble, and it would be nice if we could administer all the 

water in the exterior boundaries but, like I said, put it to use. 

Senator BARRASSO. Following with that, I think Mr. Trosper used 

the word ‘‘shortfalls’’ and ‘‘terrible conditions,’’ and it made me 

think about the idea that the BIA has not produced the long-term 

66

plan. What would you like to see in that long-term plan for the system? 

Mr. TROSPER. For myself overall, I would like to see the entire 

project needs to be redone from top to bottom. You have to have 

conservation. You know, the ditches need to be lined, head gates 

need to be fixed, structures need to be replaced in order for it to 

become as sufficient as federal projects across the river. Ours are 

not very efficient as they are, and then I would like to see that the 

tribes be given a chance to run this project so that we can eliminate some of these headaches created by the treasury, you know, 

garnishments and those kinds of things for people not using the 

water on idle lands that the BIA has trust responsibility to lease, 

and, you know, they don’t do their job so the people get their 

wages. That’s what I’d like to see is the project rebuilt, storage 

added, and then the tribe be given the chance to actually run this 

project. 

Mr. COTTENOIR. I think as J.T. was saying, the entire project 

needs to be reworked, and somehow the BIA has to secure funding 

to help rehabilitate the system, whether it’s federal appropriations 

or whatever, because currently what the O&M rates, even as they 

continue to increase, that doesn’t provide enough funds to do the 

type of rehabilitation that is necessary. Like I said in my testimony, had it not been for the efforts of the Water Resource Control 

Board going to the State of Wyoming, WWDC, and also through efforts with Senator Enzi’s office, these funds that we’re currently 

using for rehabilitation on the reservation wouldn’t even be here. 

We’d still be back having continued deferred maintenance and no 

major rehabilitation on reservation. So somehow this irrigation system is not self-sufficient. Somehow federal appropriations, whether 

it’s earmarked funds or whatever, need to be secured in order for 

rehabilitation to continue because the thought of 638-ing the system and taking over and running it, this is a delipidated system. 

We can’t be expected to take it over and then rehabilitate it on our 

own. The funds just aren’t there. Like I said, the BIA through their 

O&M fees, there just isn’t the funds available for this kind of rehabilitation. So some kind of earmarking or federal funding needs to 

be secured to continue the rehabilitation process. 

Senator BARRASSO. On the next panel, we’re going to hear from 

a member of the Crowheart Bench Water Users Association, and 

it’s my understanding that the association has a memorandum of 

understanding with the BIA to manage the Crowheart Wind River 

Irrigation Project. And do you think that Crowheart model or some 

components of it may be applied to other projects? It just seems the 

water users are happier with that approach. 

Mr. COTTENOIR. I’d like to make a statement on that. 

Senator BARRASSO. I’d like to hear from both of you. 

Mr. COTTENOIR. But the Crowheart area and the lower irrigation 

system are completely different. What works up there doesn’t necessarily work down here. The situation is completely different. It’s 

a good model, and if we could divide irrigation system into districts 

of some sort, then, yes, that possibly could be a way to go about 

it. But currently as it is, the two systems are completely different, 

and what works in one area doesn’t necessarily work in the other. 

Senator BARRASSO. J.T., do you have more you want to add? 

67

Mr. TROSPER. Well, yes, the system that they have set up, it 

works for them, I guess, for a couple reasons. One, because individual landowners and most of the land that is under that project 

is actually being irrigated and being used and is typically one or 

two person owned sections of land. Down in the Ethete area or the 

lower Arapaho area, the Coolidge and a lot of these lands are 

fractionated where you may have 200 people that have an interest 

in that land, and there’s a lot of idle land. So those little groups 

taking a little lateral and forming a group would not work down 

in this area because, you may have 50 percent of the land and little 

lateral that may be idle. You have to get everybody’s agreement to 

enter into this, and when, like I say, you may have hundreds of 

people on the lower tract of land instead of one or two that own 

it. But like he says, it’s different situations. 

Senator BARRASSO. One of the other things that caught the attention of everyone listening to your testimony, you said the 1994 

study which noted Wind River Irrigation Project had only 66 acres 

of irrigated land per mile of canal? 

Mr. COTTENOIR. That’s correct. 

Senator BARRASSO. So the rule of thumb, I think you said the 

Bureau of Reclamation is a minimum of 140 acres. 

Mr. COTTENOIR. Yes. 

Senator BARRASSO. To be self-sustaining? Other thoughts you 

had on that or maybe both of you as people in resource management would have, what we could do differently, what should go into 

a master plan, how we ought to be thinking about this 

Mr. COTTENOIR. Well, that 66 acres, we’ve been visiting with 

both Gary Collins and Bill Russell——

Senator BARRASSO. And Gary is on the next? 

Mr. COTTENOIR. Right. They’re both former water engineers. Bill 

was an engineer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Over the years 

since that 1994 study, that acreage on those canals has probably 

decreased just because a lot of lands have become idle. That is due 

to nonprofitable operations that lease fees and irrigation assessments have just priced land out of the ability to pay. A farmer can 

probably buy hay cheaper than he can to lease the land and pay 

the irrigation assessment. So there’s a lot of lands that have gone 

idle and pulled out of production. Just in 2010, there were approximately 10,000 acres of tribal land allotted and tribal acres that 

were assessed the irrigation assessment that were not receiving 

water. So those are lands that have been taken out, and the continuing rise in irrigation assessment can only compound that problem by pricing irrigators and ranchers and farmers out of business 

where they find that more economical to just purchase rather than 

actually grow their products. 

Senator BARRASSO. Do you have anything you’d like to add, Mr. 

Trosper? 

Mr. TROSPER. Well, it is true that there is a lot of fractionating 

of land. People cannot afford this anymore. I mean, the big farmers, they can afford it, but the small Indian landowner, he can’t afford these with the realty prices. I’ve dropped my lease. It was 

cheaper for me to buy hay than to pay for it anymore and have it 

produced. Like he said, it was cheaper for me to just buy hay. The 

problem that I have, you know, with some of this on the natural 

68

resource side is that even as these lands are dropping out and not 

diverting that water, the diversion rates are dropping because the 

BIA still pump these ditches full because of the inefficiency of the 

system, they have to fill it up whether they have one person irrigating or a hundred. They have to fill these ditches up, and that’s 

where environmental problems come for our fish. 

Senator BARRASSO. Well, I appreciate all of you taking the time 

to be here, to share your thoughts. If there are additional things 

you’d like to add, we’d be happy to receive that. Thank you very 

much for being here. Now I would like to call the third panel. Welcome to all three of you. Thank you for being here. The order I 

have listed is, first, William O’Neal, Wind River Irrigation Project 

water user, member of the Crowheart Bench Water Users Association. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM O’NEAL, WIND RIVER IRRIGATION 

PROJECT WATER USER; MEMBER, CROWHEART BENCH 

WATER USERS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. O’NEAL. Thank you, Senator. On behalf of all our water 

users, I extend our thanks for being able to provide testimony 

about the irrigation system we have up there. The Crowheart 

Bench Water Users Association was founded in 2004 by landowners 

in the Crowheart area. The bench users associate services approximately 8,800 acres and is composed of Dinwoody reservoir and continue many miles of canals, laterals that are supplied by snow pack 

and glacier runoff of the Wind River Mountains. The Crowheart 

Bench Irrigation System and the A canal irrigation system, which 

is another 1,800 acre system utilizing water from the Wind River, 

together make up approximately 27 percent of the total acreage 

managed by the irrigation office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 

Wind River agency. The decision to form the Crowheart Bench Association was driven by the discontent of the water users, increasing water operation and maintenance assessments, and the observed success of the A Canal Irrigators Association. Objectives of 

the Crowheart Bench Association upon its inception included, one, 

to be able to deliver water through the system as efficiently and 

cost effectively as possible; two, maintain a nearly 100-year-old system; number three, we’d like to ensure O&M moneys collected from 

Crowheart are used to achieve the above-listed objectives in the 

Crowheart area; four, we’d like to actively participate in the management of our system; and, number five, most importantly, we’d 

like to reduce the gap between O&M assessments and providing 

service. 

The Crowheart Bench Water Users Association is recognized in 

the memorandum of agreement with the BIA. This came about as 

a direct result by the efforts of, one, Crowheart water users; two, 

Indian Affairs Committee, here then under the late Senator Craig 

Thomas, Tribal Water Engineers Office, and Joint Business Council, and, of course, the BIA. 

This allows the Crowheart Bench to manage the system through 

a volunteer board of directors elected by the water users, serviced 

by the Crowheart Bench Irrigation System. The Crowheart Bench 

Water Users Board has been actively pursuing the above objective, 

and we have enjoyed the great deal of success in nearly every case. 

69

Current O&M assessments for the Crowheart Water Users is currently at $14 per acre as opposed to $20 an acre on the rest of the 

system. This reduced rate is a result of the more effective delivery 

of the local ditch rider hired on a contract basis. The ditch rider 

provides his own vehicle, covers his own expenses, and works with 

the Crowheart Bench Water Users board of directors to solve problems throughout the year that occur on the system. The ditch rider 

works for six days per week and is on call 24/7. Over the past 40 

years, actual costs of water delivery to the Crowheart Water Users 

has been approximately $3 an acre. Approximately $4 per acre is 

being used for the maintenance and rehabilitation, and the remaining seven has been used for three administrator positions whose 

duties include billing, collections, and project management. Significant steps have been taken to rehabilitate the system, including 

cleaning many of miles of canals and laterals, replacement of turnouts, gates, structures, and head gates. Much of the work has been 

performed by local contractors which has enabled a great deal of 

work to be done for a fraction of the cost the BIA incurs. Water 

users have always volunteered a great deal of time and labor in 

priming laterals, pouring cement, and assisting with various repairs to the system. 

We want to understand this is probably not a fix-all for the entire project. It has and continues to work well for a variety of reasons here. One, we have a different water source. We have glacier 

runoff which in nature’s form gives us a certain amount of storage. 

We have a little better canal conditions up there partly due to the 

work we’ve done ourselves, and, second, we have a little faster 

canal system. I think it keeps its condition a little better. We have 

smaller working group up there. We have a very strong ag. based 

economy there. Everyone there or the greater majority of people 

who irrigate there use ag. as a primary source of income. We don’t 

have a business or anything outside of that to supplement income. 

So a lot of people work real hard at making this irrigation system 

work. That’s our livelihood basically. Just to give you kind of an 

idea where we’re at right now. 

Our next immediate obstacles that we wish to overcome are the 

administrative costs basically we incur. We’re paying about half of 

that right now in administrative costs that go back. We feel that 

because of trust responsibilities, BIA to Tribal and allotted lands. 

We’re going to have a hard time to cover that. Right now this 

project could run 100 percent by the water users’ moneys, and as 

late as 1990 federal moneys were appropriated for construction of 

cement structures and researching ownership, of heirship/

fractionated lands for O&M assessment on the Wind River Irrigation Project. These figures come from a prior project manager. We 

don’t want to enjoy that luxury. We’d like to get back to us. We 

as landowners, 100 percent of our properties fee or trust, feel we 

are forced to take on the trust responsibilities of the BIA that are 

paying 100 percent of the administrative costs. We thank you and 

look forward to working with you, Senator Barrasso, and the Indian Affairs Committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Neil follows:]

70

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM O’NEAL, WIND RIVER IRRIGATION PROJECT

WATER USER; MEMBER, CROWHEART BENCH WATER USERS ASSOCIATION


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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. O’Neal. I would 

point out for everyone here that I go to a lot of senate hearings, 

and often the administration, they’re gone before the other people 

testify. I will just tell you the people from the first panel, they’re 

still here down in the front row listening, the BIA are listening to 

everything you say. So I think it’s a great credit to them know that 

they had stayed to listen to everything that’s being said here. With 

that, let me turn to Mr. Glick, who’s a Wind River Irrigation 

Project water user. Thank you, Mr. Glick. 

STATEMENT OF CLINTON GLICK, RANCHER; WIND RIVER 

IRRIGATION PROJECT WATER USER 

Mr. GLICK. Thank you, Senator John Barrasso, Vice Chairman, 

and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to testify on the 

Wind River Irrigation Project. I am a water user under the Wind 

River irrigation Project as I’m a member of the Glick family who 

runs a small cattle ranch. 

The management of the Wind River Irrigation Project has a lack 

of adequate funding and requires consistent administration, engineers, and bill collectors to succeed and be efficient. If and when 

consistent appropriated funds are available to pay for administration and management, more operation and maintenance assessed 

funds can be directed towards deferred maintenance. Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho joint tribes appointed tribal organizations and proposed water users group need to be included in the 

coordinating and consulting of setting the program’s operation and 

maintenance decisions to allow for and allow for improved planning. The Wind River Irrigation Project needs financial assistance 

through the construction to complete and rehab the system as to 

permit the ultimate development of a viable and sustainable irrigation project for our future generations. 

Department funding is derived from operation and maintenance 

charges per irrigatable acre. BIA calculates irrigation assessment 

rates, and in accordance with 25 CFR 171.1(f), by estimating the 


420c2.eps
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cost of normal operation and maintenance at each irrigation 

project. The cost of normal support or benefit of the irrigation 

project activities means the expenses they incur to provide direct 

support of, and benefit for, the administration, operation, maintenance and rehabilitation. I’d like to emphasize the normal part in 

here where a lot of this administration rehab and stuff should not 

be included with our O&M charges because it’s above and beyond. 

The administration payroll expenditures consume the majority of 

the operation funds and keep escalating with federal costs of living 

increases which are required for federal employees. I believe consistent appropriated funds for administration engineers and bill 

collectors and management would benefit the district whereas the 

overall irrigation district’s budget would require less assessed 

charges per acre and nonetheless would allow more funds to be directed towards high priority areas. 

Deferred maintenance has been hindered by administration (engineers and bill collectors) expenditures. Water users, and BIA 

have reported operations of maintenance fees provide insufficient 

funding for project operations. I believe administration engineers 

and bill collectors costs should receive consistent appropriated 

funding since the irrigation district are considered to be BIA 

owned. Deferred maintenance has turned the BIA maintenance 

crew into emergency repair crew. All of the major canals have been 

ignored for so long they can hardly convey water to head gates. 

When funds are available, I am very agreeable that the diversion 

dams, major canals, and head gates are to be placed on top of the 

Wind River Irrigation System prior to this. At what time the irrigation system receives more maintenance and rehabilitation, the system will become more efficient and conserve water for other beneficial uses such as fisheries, wildlife, pollution control, recreation, 

cultural, municipal, domestic use and other users down the road. 

Along the same lines is Deferred Maintenance. Many of our 

U.S.G.S. Gauging Stations are no longer funded. In order to build 

a feasible resource management plan for our water systems, it’s imperative to be able to track our water. This would be beneficial to 

the BIA, Eastern Shoshone and Norther Arapaho Tribes, State of 

Wyoming, Fremont County, our irrigation districts, and our local 

water lease. 

Coordination between the BIA irrigation department, BIA realty 

department, Easteren Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Joint 

Tribes, and appointed Tribal Organizations all need to work together on the government-to-government basis. Also, all of these 

entities need to include the proposed water users group as cooperators. This will enhance our planning to provide for educated decisions on actions necessary for the proper operation maintenance 

and administration of our irrigation project and lands. 

At one time, irrigation increased the value of our lands and 

cheapened the price of living in all our local towns within our Wind 

River Reservation and the state of Wyoming. Without the irrigation 

project and ag. communities, many industries and towns could not 

flourish. Anything which affects the success of the many achievements of the irrigation project and agricultural communities not 

only concerns those engaged in the pursuit but also the progress 

and welfare of the Wind River Reservation and the state of WyoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jan 17, 2012 Jkt 070860 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\70860.TXT JACK
73

ming. With the deterioration of our irrigation system, the high cost 

of assessed charges, our lands have become more of a burden rather than an asset. 

With the cattle prices at an all time high, it is now an optimum 

time to sell. I am afraid many of the existing ranchers and farmers 

will sell out. It will then take a considerable amount of funding to 

rebuild the local agricultural community. Right now, there is no 

feasible way for young families to embark into ranching and farming due to the amount of seed moneys required to start up. We are 

left with the major dilemma. I feel strongly that our irrigation 

project should receive consistent appropriate funding for administration, engineering, and building—bill collectors. This will allow 

us to salvage our situation by allowing more funding to be directed 

towards high priorities, such as key maintenance. Thank you for 

the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Glick follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CLINTON GLICK, RANCHER; WIND RIVER IRRIGATION

PROJECT WATER USER

Mr. John Barrasso, M.D. Vice Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for this opportunity to testify on issues pertaining to Operation and 

Maintenance of the Wind River Irrigation Project. 

I am a water user under the Wind River Irrigation Project, as I am a member 

of the Glick family, who runs a small cattle ranch out side of Fort Washakie. 

The Management of the Wind River Irrigation Project has a lack of adequate 

funding, and requires consistent appropriated funds for Administration (Engineers 

and Bill Collectors) to succeed and be efficient. If and when consistent appropriated 

funds are available to pay for Administration and Management, more Operation and 

Maintenance Assessed Funds can be directed towards Deferred Maintenance. Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Joint Tribes, Appointed Tribal Organizations, 

and a Proposed Water Users Group need to be included in the coordinating and consulting of setting the program’s priorities, operation, and maintenance decisions, to 

allow for improved Planning. The Wind River Irrigation Project needs financial assistance through the Construction to Complete and Rehab of the System period, as 

to permit the ultimate development of a viable and sustainable irrigation project for 

our future generations. 

The BIA Irrigation Department’s funding is derived from Operation and Maintenance charges per irrigatable acre. BIA calculates irrigation assessment rates in accordance with 25 CFR 171.1(f) by estimating the cost of normal operation and maintenance at each irrigation project. The cost of normal operation and maintenance 

means the expenses they incur to provide direct support of benefit for and irrigation 

project’s activities for administration, operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation.

The Administration payroll expenditures consume the majority of the Operation & 

Maintenance funds, and keep escalating with the Federal Cost of Living Increases, 

which are required for Federal Employees. I believe consistent appropriated funds 

for Administration (Engineers and Bill Collectors) and Management would benefit 

the district, whereas the overall Irrigation District’s Budget would require less assessed charges per acre, and nonetheless will allow more funds to be directed towards high priority areas. 

Deferred Maintenance has been hindered by Administration (Engineers and Bill 

Collectors) expenditures. Water Users and BIA have reported that Operations and 

Maintenance Fees provide insufficient funding for project operations. I believe Administration (Engineers and Bill Collectors) Costs should receive consistent appropriated funding, since the Irrigation Districts are considered to be BIA Owned. Deferred Maintenance has turned the BIA Irrigation Maintenance Crew into an Emergency Repair Crew. All of the major canals have been ignored for so long they can 

hardly convey water to the aging head gates. 

When funds are available, I am very agreeable that Diversion Dams, Major Canals, and Head Gates are to be placed on top of the Wind River Irrigation Systems 

Priority List. At what time the Irrigation System receives more Maintenance and 

Rehabilitation; the system will become more efficient and conserve water, for other 

beneficial uses such as: fisheries, wildlife, pollution control, recreation, cultural, reliVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jan 17, 2012 Jkt 070860 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\70860.TXT JACK
74

gious, hydropower, industrial, municipal, domestic use, and other users down the 

road. 

Along the same lines as Deferred Maintenance, many of our U.S.G.S. Gauging 

Stations are no longer funded. In order to build a feasible Resource Management 

Plan for our water systems, it is imperative to be able to track our water. This 

would be beneficial to the BIA, Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, 

State of Wyoming, Fremont County, our irrigation districts, and our local water 

ways. 

Coordination between the BIA Irrigation Department, BIA Realty Department, 

Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Joint Tribes, Appointed Tribal Organizations all need to work together, on a government-to-government basis. Also, all of 

these entities need to include the Proposed Water Users Group as cooperators; this 

will enhance our planning to provide more educated decisions on actions necessary 

for the proper: operation, maintenance, and administration of our irrigation project 

and lands. 

At one time Irrigation increased the value of our lands and cheapened the price 

of living in all our local towns within the Wind River Indian Reservation and the 

State of Wyoming. Without the Irrigation Projects and Agricultural Communities, 

many industries and towns could not flourish. Any thing which affects the success 

and many achievements of the Irrigation Projects and Agricultural Communities, 

not only concerns those engaged in the pursuit, but also the progress and welfare 

of the Wind River Reservation and the State of Wyoming. With the deterioration 

of our irrigation systems, the high cost of assessed charges, our lands has become 

a burden rather than an asset. 

With the cattle prices at an all time high, it is an optimum time to sell. I am 

afraid many of the existing ranchers and farmers will sell out. It will then take a 

considerable amount of funding to rebuild the local Agricultural Community. Right 

now there is no feasible way for young families to embark into ranching and farming, due to the amount of seed monies required for startup, so we are left with a 

major dilemma. I feel strongly that our Irrigation Project should receive consistent 

appropriated funding for Administration (Engineers and Bill Collectors). This will 

allow us to salvage our situation, by allowing more funding to be directed toward 

high priorities, such as Key Maintenance. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Attachment

75


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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much. It was very helpful. 

And now we have Gary Collins, Wind River Irrigation Project 

water user. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF GARY COLLINS, WIND RIVER IRRIGATION 

PROJECT WATER USER 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. It’s an honor to be here with 

you, and I appreciate your time to come to this Senate field hearing. Many points that I would like to talk about have been addressed in part before; however, the history of the project was intended for the native Americans, Shoshones and Arapahos, as their 

homeland. And that focus has been changed over the time because 

we don’t have a very large amount of ag. people in the business. 

So the intended purpose has been not adequately taken care of, 

and so the funding with regards to the irrigation project has been 

less than adequate. It hasn’t been kept up with the times, and for 

a comparison, I would like to identify the Bureau of Indian Affairs 

project where there’s about 66 acres per mile of lateral. Over on 

Midvale area, north of the Big Wind River and Bureau of Reclamation, also in the Interior Department, is nearly 160 acres of land 


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per mile. So the economics look very dire for the tribal section because we have so many more miles to get an acre of land irrigated. 

So it’s intriguing to me that under Interior, there’s two segments, 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Reclamation. And one 

is very successful and the other is not. So as we move forward, we 

have found that the funding for the irrigation project just wasn’t 

going to happen through the BIA through their regular process of 

putting a budget together, going to Congress in their BIA budget. 

So what the tribes have done to secure funds is actually go to 

Washington D.C., speak with the Senators, Senator Thomas and 

Senator Enzi and others, Senator Metcalf. And so there was an effort by the Wind River Water Resources Control Board to do those 

things, and today we have nearly $7,000,000 that we’ve received. 

And a fair amount of that has been expended. Had we not done 

this, had we not been able to secure those funds, I believe today 

the system would not be operable. It would have been an economic 

disaster. We have gone to the diversion structures and rehabilitated those and taken away the bottlenecks, and this is a major 

challenge during drought conditions in the early part of this century. So the tribes have taken initiative to move forward with 

doing something to take the bottlenecks away to create an efficiency, even to the tune of hiring professional engineering firms to 

review the system and validate the inadequacies. We’ve done that 

with a firm, NRCC. We’ve also had HKM Engineering out of Billings. In addition to that, the Wyoming Water Development Commission has come out and reviewed and has corroborated with the 

number we’ve identified as 65 and 70 million up to $100,000,000 

of rehabilitation money that’s needed just to keep the system going. 

So the inefficiency of the system today has created more idle tracts 

of land, which means less dollars protected for the system, but it 

also has caused many families to not be in the ag. business anymore. 

The intention of our homeland was to be agriculturally based. 

Having not had that opportunity to create a homeland with agriculture, the fabric of the community has been unraveled because 

we don’t have the core anymore. Like some of my colleagues mentioned earlier, it’s too expensive to get into the business now that 

we start from scratch. You have to have something handed down 

from family to family or generational. So the money I mentioned 

to rehab the system doesn’t include anything with regard to future 

lands. 

Mr. Martel mentioned Riverton east, Crowheart north and south. 

Those dollars in some estimation would be $3,000 an acre to put 

them at an irrigatable practice scheme. So the O&M as it is identified to sustain the system goes out to all landowners, and that’s 

particularly a difficult situation for landowners who are elderly 

who are no longer in the irrigation system but they are a landowner, they are penalized because they have to pay for the water 

that they don’t use. And if they get to the point where if they can’t 

pay it, then through the debt collection act, their social security is 

impacted by this same effort. So 70 percent of the system being operated by non-Indian ag. people, the elders with O&M charges who 

don’t use the land, and many others actually are subsidizing the 

non-Indian water user on the place that’s their homeland. So 

78

there’s a financial inequity there that causes a big burden for our 

tribal members. And I know we’re trying to facilitate dealing with 

the fractionated interests, but there are many tribal members who 

are young who don’t know what O&M charges mean and, of course, 

there becomes lien on any future income they might have through 

the system as they get older. So that’s something we really have 

to look at is how do we address that O&M so it’s not detrimental 

to the landowner. The area in terms of management is that even 

though the tribes have their adjudicated water rights, 500,000 plus 

acre feet of federal reserve right, we need instrumentation and 

tools to manage that water so we know what the tools are in different drainage. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has opted to not fund some of our 

gauging stations, and the concept that I was told, well, you have 

your water adjudicated. You don’t need to know how much you 

have. You know already how much you have, but that’s not applicable on a day-to-day basis of water management. And that has precipitated a letter of some dialogue with the state engineers office 

to the BIA that they will call in order that would be in breach of 

the Big Horn Decree if they don’t fund those gauging stations. And 

so I think it’s taking a heavy hammer of the State Engineer’s Office to talk with the BIA in the central office about reestablishing 

our gauging stations. It was apparent last year during our flood 

event that we need gauging stations, and they weren’t operable. So 

the gauging stations is a critical issue. I would hope that the Bureau can seek some way to fund those. There was some attempt to 

add on the cost of the gauging stations to the O&M rate. So it’s 

easy pickings to go to the water users rather than go through BIA 

or federal entity up to the Congress for funding. 

So with that, I just want to mention that this whole scenario 

about the irrigation project here at Wind River has many times 

overreached a trust responsibility to the tribes, and we hope to rectify that. Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Collins follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GARY COLLINS, WIND RIVER IRRIGATION PROJECT WATER

USER

History of the Project 

Inadequate Funding to Sustain Project Viability 

Compared to Bureau of Reclamation to Bureau of Indian Affairs 66 acres of land 

per 1 mile of lateral on BIA vs. 160 acres of land served per mile of Lateral on BOR. 

Funding for Irrigation 

Rehabilitation on WRIP has been solely Tribal efforts to secure funds from Congress and Wyoming Water Development Commission. 

The inefficient system today has caused future ranchers and farmers to opt out 

due to costs O and M penalizes land owners that do not farm Tribes have secured 

professional engineering analysis of WRIP and have determined that $70,000,000 to 

$100,000,000 to rehabilitate the irrigation project , not including any ‘‘futures land 

irrigation.’’ 

The ‘‘fabric’’ of the agriculture community is being destroyed due to excessive costs 

and inefficiency of the system. 

The TRUST Responsibility to the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribes has been 

breached.

Senator BARRASSO. I appreciate the comments from all of you. 

We hear about the BIA emergency response and that the land is 

79

now more of a burden than an asset. You know, looking at the 

GAO report that said the BIA at that point a number of years ago 

was not accountable, I’d like to ask all of you with the BIA sitting 

here, how can BIA increase water users in the project decisionmaking and how can they boost their accountability to you? I don’t 

know, Gary, if you want to start and go down the isle. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, Senator, I believe that had not the tribe established the Wind River Water Code, which secured the placement 

of Wind River Resource Control Board members that there would 

be a lot of things that would be left undone, and I believe the 

Water Resources Control Board as an entity of tribal government 

exercises its sovereignty in terms of looking after a very precious 

resource, and as we all know, some of our water impacts here in 

Wyoming will be driven by Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque and 

so forth, including Denver. So we need to be on top of our game. 

We need to have gauging stations. We need to have a professional 

and efficiently run irrigation system to create opportunity for our 

people and make the economy work here. We have, like I said, 

10,000 acres that are idle, 30,000 acres are productive, but with 

more O&M increases, there’s more idle tracts that come in because 

people can’t afford it. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. O’Neal, anything you’d like to add in 

order to make the BIA more responsible? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Yes. I think we addressed that in Crowheart with 

the MOU. Before we had this in place, we were under the impression that we had no say whatsoever in our election. Whatever they 

came up with, that’s what we paid, and that’s basically wherever 

they deliver it to us, I don’t care, most the time it was only one 

ditch rider in that particular area, hardly any service. Since we 

started this, we have a real good relationship working with the office. 

Senator BARRASSO. Do you think that Crowheart model components apply to other units? 

Mr. O’NEAL. There’s some here that I think would fall in that 

category. I think it would have to be water user driven. We’ve offered expertise in two other areas, but with very little success. We 

still have a budget problem. We’re not getting all the answers we 

want. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Glick. 

Mr. GLICK. Yes, I’d like to add that I’d like to see the BIA and 

the irrigation department and the BIA realty department collaborate to help us with our land and water issues. They are tied together no matter if they are two different entities under the BIA. 

The leases and the irrigation charges are what cause a lot of the 

idle lands out there since nobody can afford to lease a piece of 

ground with the irrigation charges on this. I’d like to have the BIA 

irrigation department and the BIA realty department basically coordinate like on a government to government basis with Shoshone 

Arapaho tribes in the tribal appointed organization water resource 

control board. The BIA has, what, two meetings a year which I 

wouldn’t consider that coordination. I’d consider that more of a cooperator. That doesn’t really include us on some of the budget or 

the plans. I’d like to see the BIA representatives attend more of the 

Water Resource Control Board meetings so that they have a better 

80

feel for what the individual landowners are going through, what 

their thoughts might be on planning. That’s about it. 

Senator BARRASSO. Just for this panel, you’ve heard a lot today, 

a couple of hours, is there anything you think was not covered or 

anything I ought to hear? We would like to get everything in the 

Senate record that everybody wants to have said on this topic. 

Mr. GLICK. I’d like to see congressional mandate to have appropriated funds to cover the administrative costs, the engineers, the 

portion of the costs for the payroll for the system irrigation operators, and possibly the maintenance crew. That way our assessed 

charges for the irrigatable acre, which is basically directed towards 

operation and maintenance, would have more funding that would 

hit the ground on maintenance and basically sufficient operation 

methods. On the portion where the USGS gauging stations, I think 

there could have been possibly 24 in operation five, six years ago, 

and now there’s only four. I think that we need consistent appropriated funds for the USGS gauging stations to stay in function so 

that we can have the overall better resource management plan and 

if we could manage our resources better, we’ll know where to keep 

track of our water, like, on the rehab part of the district if we can 

rehab most—just start up with mainly the main canal, we can 

work around and actually conserve more water for people down the 

road. 

Senator BARRASSO. Ma’am, if you could identify yourself for the 

record and what you’d like to say. 

STATEMENT OF SANDRA C’BEARING, CO–CHAIR, WATER 

RESOURCE CONTROL BOARD, NORTHERN ARAPAHO TRIBE 

Ms. C’BEARING. Okay. Thank you, Senator Barrasso. My name is 

Sandra C’Bearing, and I’m the Co-Chair for the Water Resource 

Control Board for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, and I’m pleased to 

be here today to give some testimony to the irrigation project. 

Senator BARRASSO. We’ll make your entire testimony if you’d like 

it part of the record, but if you’d summarize for us. 

Ms. C’BEARING. Okay. Sure. In November 2002, the Northern 

Arapaho General Council approved a resolution authorizing the 

Northern Arapaho Business Council to develop a water plan for the 

reservation water resources. The resolution cited the following reasons for its passage: The Wind River water passed by both general 

council in 1990 required the development of a plan for the management, administration, use, and protection of tribal water rights and 

provided guidance for doing so; that water development decisions 

could not be made without such a plan; and that future growth of 

the tribe required a development of an organized approach to meeting the needs of the tribal population. The economic development 

has been vital for both tribes because of the lack of a plan for protection and use of the reservation’s resources and that real water 

supply problems were being experienced, including farmers, households, and water supplies. 

With that, in regards to the Wind River—the management of the 

BIA irrigation project, of considerable concern to all reservation 

leaders and residents in the rehabilitation and management of the 

BIA irrigation system and of the effective delivery of 1868 water 

to tribal water. Given the need for irrigation system rehabilitation, 

81

the overall goal of that research effort was to compare how tribal 

1868 water is managed under the BIA system 25 CFR part 171 

versus the Wind River Water Code, Chapter Nine, of the Eastern 

Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. Among the many technical 

funding of this report are that the tribes are not receiving their full 

allotment of tribal 1868 water and the BIA system in 25 CFR. The 

tribes receive only 40 to 80 percent of the their 1868 water rights 

awarded in the Big Horn Decree, and then the tribal water code 

would deliver the full amount of the 1868 water. The BIA is not 

following its own procedures in implementing the 25 CFR part 171, 

specifically the basis for assessing and application of operation and 

maintenance, O&M fees, delivery of a quantified water right, in 

this case tribal 1868 water, maintenance of irrigation delivery system, the operation of the project for maximum tribal benefit, and 

the prevention of waste. The BIA system requires a payment of the 

O&M fees are prerequisites for water delivery is physically inefficient and legally insufficient in delivering the 1868 water to the 

1868 water right holders. 

While it might not be beneficial to contract the BIA irrigation 

project under public law 93–638, there are ways to exert a greater 

tribal and local control over the systems and tribal organizational 

office, like irrigation conservation districts. These organizational 

units can attract outside funds or other resources. And with that 

being that the largest block of tribal water is used for irrigation in 

the BIA Irrigation Project on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 

early 1990s, the BIA reclassified major portions of the Wind River 

Irrigation Project land from class six to class one lands, meaning 

an upgrade from lands that could not support themselves to lands 

that could. And this resulted in a loss of significant funds for maintenance activities and raised the individuals operation and maintenance fees. 

The tribes can only effectively use about 100,000 acre feet of the 

250,000 acre feet of historical irrigation water to irrigation and 

cannot make use of the additional 250,000 acre feet of water 

awarded because of the following: The disrepair and rehabilitation 

needs of the system, the failure of the BIA to maintain the delivery 

and storage infrastructure and deferring maintenance, the lack of 

irrigation water management for the entire project, idle lands that 

do not receive water but are still charged irrigation O&M fees. 

Since the 1988 Big Horn Decree, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has 

wasted and mismanaged the tribes’ federal reserve water rights. 

The BIA has failed to deliver the adjudicated water rights amounts 

to tribal land in each of the BIA projects on the reservation sometimes by more than half. The BIA has failed to protect the senior 

tribal water right even in the drought situation by failing to develop an irrigation and water management plan as required in 25 

CFR. Management of the BIA system, including storage operations, 

result in the waste of tribal water to junior water users. The BIA 

is not allocating operation and maintenance funds collected from 

water users for maintenance of the project. 

Since the 1988 Big Horn Decree, the Bureau of Reclamation has 

failed to make any adjustments in the water management operation to account for 500,000 acre feet of the tribes federal reserve 

water rights. This has resulted in the documented diversion and 

82

storage of more than 2.1 million acre feet of federal reserve water 

rights for use or sale in irrigation and power generation. The Bureau of Reclamation has contributed this diversion in all year types 

including drought without any discussion, advice, nor consent of 

the tribes. This has prevented the tribes from getting any benefit 

from their water and has stifled resources planning for and the use 

of the senior water right, a valuable resource in the Wind River 

Basin. The ultimate goal of the tribes is full ownership and management of the operational authority, several factors make it unwise at this time. The estimated rehabilitation needs range from 50 

to $70,000,000. The lack of sufficient management capability to 

manage the project given the current organization and the lack of 

water management planned for the irrigation project and the lack 

of BOR BIA collaboration to protect the tribes’ senior water right 

and how to compensate for the volume of water wasted since 1868 

Big Horn Decree resulting in the failure of the federal trustees to 

protect the federal reserve water right. 

And to conclude, I’d like to include some recommendations that 

you investigate the BIA BOR’s waste and abuse of federal reserve 

water rights of the Northern Arapaho Eastern Shoshone tribes and 

conduct an investigation of the BIA’s land reclassification and assess the economic productivity of the WRIB lands, conduct a feasibility study for the rehabilitation of the irrigation project whose 

focus is to reduce cost by investigating different water management 

alternatives for storage and delivery, irrigation districts, rotation, 

and scheduling, and land modifications to increase efficient and 

storage. As part of the study, we would like to include a development of long-term phase program where the tribes enter organizations of water users own, operate, and manage the project. And 

lastly investigate key questions related to the construction of Riverton reclamation project of the 1905 act lands after meeting with 

the tribal leaders to present information. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. C’Bearing follows:]

83

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SANDRA C’BEARING, CO-CHAIR, WATER RESOURCE

CONTROL BOARD, NORTHERN ARAPAHO TRIBE


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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Thank you very being here. Mr. Collins, there was a last comment, 

and I think you were wanting to say one last thing. 

Mr. COLLINS. Yes. Thank you, Senator Barrasso. I believe the 

facts are laid out before all of us as to what we have done and 

haven’t done. So I think there needs to be emphasis added to the 

BIA to sustain their trust responsibility. Additionally, I believe the 

tribes can move forward with the Wind River Water Resources 

Board to protect their natural resources. So there needs to be some 

government-to-government discussions there, more collaboration, 

and certainly if we could receive additional funding in whatever 

manner, preferably go through the chain of issues with the BIA, 

but having seen that not working, we would probably still approach 

the congressional congress for those kind of issues like we have 

been. But we are woefully inadequate in sustaining our economy. 

That’s the big thing. It’s not about money fixing the system; it’s 


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about money fixing the system and creating opportunity to maintain and sustain the community so we, too, can enjoy the economic 

benefits. 

Senator BARRASSO. Well, thank you. I want to thank all of you 

from this panel and I want to thank everyone who came to testify 

today. I want to thank every who has attended the meeting and 

taking your time to participate. I’m grateful that Central Wyoming 

College made this wonderful facility available to us, and specifically I want to thank our State of Wyoming Select Committee on 

Tribal Relations, Kale Case and Dale McOmie who are still here. 

They’ve been here the entire duration of this hearing. Thank all of 

you. The record will stay open another two weeks. Anyway, with 

that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, the Committee was adjourned.] 

(87)

APPENDIX


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PREPARED STATEMENT OF OWEN GOGGLES, NORTHERN ARAPAHO TRIBAL MEMBER

AND HONORED VIETNAM VETERAN

As a landowner and shareholder, I am very upset and unsatisfied. I was unaware 

that there are three (3) administrators and during the meeting that was conducted 

at CWC, the three (3) administrators had no future plan. At this time, we, I do not 

receive any information from the BIA here on the Wind River Reservation. When 

the few of us do attempt to obtain any information as a person, tribal member, individual, etc. we are continually given the run around. Why do I have to pay more 

into irrigation for no kind of water use? As it is we are already paying enough sovereignty tax into the state. Not to mention our land lease is unaffordable for the 

native use. I had stated to personnel about my Vietnam experiences with the value 

of clean, clear water. We Native Americans have hardly any say with our water. 

The people’s voice should be heard. We could have the wrong people speaking for 

the Arapahos and Shoshones. As a Vietnam Veteran, I’ve seen many young men die. 

Their voices will never be heard. Some of the Little Wind River has contamination 

from uranium and maybe radiation. I live approximately 100 yards from this contamination. The Big Wind River becomes a trickle during the summer months. I understand that a non-native diverted the flow of water from his personal property 

years ago. The river water could be run off from used irrigation water and human 


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waste. Again these are just of few of my comments and concerns regarding the 

water and irrigation problems. 

I thank you for your time to read this, 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWARD LEONARDI, PRESIDENT, DOUBLE L RANCH, INC.


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PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRETT, EDNA, LORI, AND RUSSELL WEBER


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PREPARED STATEMENT OF TOM NORWOOD


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PREPARED STATEMENT OF RAY PARKHURST

Æ


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