# Plain Language Summary: Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments Act of 2025

This bill updates and expands a water project designed to bring clean drinking water to Navajo Nation communities and some surrounding areas in New Mexico and Arizona. The original project was authorized back in 2009, but this new bill modernizes it and makes several important changes to how it will work.

The core of the project involves building water infrastructure—including pipelines, treatment plants, and storage facilities—to deliver water from the San Juan River to Navajo Nation communities that currently lack reliable access to clean water. The bill updates the project's cost estimate to about $2.1 billion (adjusted to 2022 prices) and allows the project to expand beyond its original service areas. Specifically, it now permits water delivery to additional Navajo communities in the Rio San Jose Basin area of New Mexico and to the community of Lupton, Arizona. The bill also clarifies that the project can use renewable energy sources (like solar) for areas that don't have access to existing power infrastructure, with up to $6.25 million available for this purpose.

A significant part of this bill deals with land ownership. Once the project is completed and certain conditions are met, specific parcels of land where water facilities are located will be transferred into federal trust for the Navajo Nation. This means the land becomes part of the Navajo Reservation and is managed under tribal law rather than state law. The bill specifies exactly which parcels qualify for this transfer, including land where pumping stations and treatment plants will be built. Importantly, existing contracts and agreements on this land—like utility easements—will continue to be honored unless the companies holding them agree to end them early.

Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments Act of 2025

Leger Fernandez, Teresa

Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Amendments Act of 2025This bill extends deadlines and otherwise revises the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project. This project was first authorized by the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which settled the Navajo Nation's water rights in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico.Specifically, the bill extends through December 31, 2029, the deadline for constructing project facilities.The bill allows for additional project service areas, including by allowing the Navajo Nation to expand the project service area in order to deliver water supply from the project to Lupton, Arizona.&nbsp;The bill also sets forth&nbsp;criteria to authorize non-project water to flow outside of the project service area to Navajo communities in Utah.The bill directs the Department of the Interior to take certain land into trust for the benefit of the Navajo Nation.The bill also establishes (1) the Navajo Nation Operations, Maintenance, and Replacement Trust Fund; and (2) the Jicarilla Apache Nation Operations, Maintenance, and Replacement Trust Fund.