H.R. 1482 — Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments Act of 2025

This section establishes the short title as the “Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments Act of 2025.”

This section revises the definitions for the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects Act by (1) striking the definition of “Settlement Trust Funds” as a standalone term and redesignating several existing paragraphs, (2) adding a new definition for the “Deferred Construction Fund” as the Navajo Nation’s Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Deferred Construction Fund established under section 10602(i)(1)(A), (3) updating references from “Draft Environmental Impact Statement” to “Final Environmental Impact Statement” and changing the referenced date from March 2007 to July 6, 2009, (4) defining the “Project Service Area” as the area encompassing 43 Nation chapters, the southwest portion of the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, and the City identified in figure IV–5 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, (5) defining “Settlement Trust Funds” to include the Navajo Nation Water Resources Development Trust Fund, the Navajo Nation Operations, Maintenance, and Replacement Trust Fund, and the Jicarilla Apache Nation Operations, Maintenance, and Replacement Trust Fund, and (6) defining the “Working Cost Estimate” as the Bureau of Reclamation’s “NGWSP October 2022 WCE” dated February 26, 2023, which sets the Project’s costs at $2,138,387,000 at the October 2022 price level.

This section revises the authorization for the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project under section 10602 of the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects Act to reference the Final Environmental Impact Statement, as further refined in the Working Cost Estimate and any subsequent supplemental National Environmental Policy Act documents, instead of the Draft Impact Statement. It also authorizes the Navajo Nation to expand the Project Service Area to additional communities in the Rio San Jose Basin, New Mexico, and to Lupton, Arizona, within the Little Colorado River Basin, Arizona, while finding that such expansion would not increase project costs beyond existing authorization levels and would reduce unit operations and maintenance costs by adding customers. This section also revises the project’s authorized facilities to include acquisition of, in addition to construction of, the water conveyance and storage facilities associated with the San Juan Generating Station, including the diversion dam, intake structure, river pumping plant, pipeline, dam, reservoir, and related land or ancillary features. It makes conforming location and routing changes for project components, including references to the Generating Station Reservoir and the use of “generally” in describing alignments along U.S. Highway 491 and U.S. Highway 550, and clarifies that treatment facilities may include reservoir facilities. This section further expands the land provisions to cover land and facilities, and directs the Secretary, after specified conditions are met, to take legal title to and hold in trust for the Navajo Nation several identified parcels of fee land, Bureau of Land Management public domain land, and land underlying the San Juan Generating Station. It provides that the trust land will become part of the Navajo Reservation and remain subject to valid existing rights, contracts, management agreements, easements, and rights-of-way.

This section revises the Navajo Nation water rights settlement by renaming the existing “Trust Fund” references to “Settlement Trust Funds,” extending the deadline for deposits into the Navajo Nation Water Resources Development Trust Fund to December 31, 2032 (from December 31, 2019), extending the deadline for deposits tied to the project deadline to December 31, 2029 (from 2024), and adding a new Deferred Construction Fund deposit deadline of December 31, 2029. It also provides that, once the Deferred Construction Fund is fully funded, the Secretary of the Interior is deemed to have met the project deadline even if some project facilities have not yet been constructed.

This section revises the Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects Act to authorize the Navajo Nation to convey up to 2,000 acre-feet per year of non-Project water to Navajo communities in Utah, subject to specified conditions. It adds definitions for the Navajo/Utah Settlement Agreement, dated May 27, 2022, and for Navajo-Utah water rights, and requires that any non-Project water delivered to the New Mexico state line be counted as part of the quantified Navajo-Utah water rights and as a depletion against Utah’s apportionment under the settlement agreement. It also prohibits Project funds from being used to design, plan, construct, operate, maintain, or repair additional infrastructure in New Mexico, Arizona, or Utah to connect Project infrastructure to the Sweetwater pipeline, and bars any increase in Project participants’ operation, maintenance, and replacement costs because of the non-Project infrastructure. The section further provides that the United States has no responsibility to supply the water and that no federal funding may be used for non-Project infrastructure costs except funds authorized under the Navajo Nation/State of Utah settlement, section 7 of the Act of August 5, 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2004a), or the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (25 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.). It also specifies that efforts to provide the water may not delay the Project in a way that prejudices any Project participant and conditions delivery on compliance with the settlement agreement, issuance of a decreed Utah water right, no additional Utah financial obligations beyond those in the settlement, and an implementation agreement on accounting and measurement. Finally, it clarifies that New Mexico has no obligation to provide the water or any funding under this paragraph.