The University of Arizona Press
June 26, 2024
Unraveling a complex web of tension, distrust, and political maneuvering, Damming the Gila continues the story of the Gila River Indian Community’s struggle for the restoration of its water rights.
We recently had a chance to interview author David H. DeJong about the book, asking about the origin of the project, the lessons we should learn from this history, and what’s next in DeJong’s water chronicles.
What first sparked your interest in the story of the Gila River and the San Carlos Irrigation Project?
I was 16 years old when I first traveled through what was once the “breadbasket” of the Gila River Indian Community. Being from an agricultural background, I was struck by how many acres of land were lying fallow. It was apparent to me that many thousands of acres had once been irrigated but were now lying abandoned. I resolved then that I would seek to answer why so much land on the reservation had gone out of production. I later learned the San Carlos Irrigation Project was intended to restore the agricultural economy of the Community, but as with so many federal promises, it failed to do so. I have now spent over 40 years researching and learning the why of this failure.
This is the third volume in your chronicle of the history of water rights on the Gila River Indian Reservation, spanning nearly 100 years. Did you always plan for this series to have three parts?
Damming the Gila follows Stealing the Gila (2009) and Diverting the Gila (2021). It will be followed by Fighting for the Gila and Restoring the Gila. I always envisioned a two-volume history that would cover the history of Akimel O’otham agriculture through the 1940s. Once I joined the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project in 2001, I realized there was much more to the story than two volumes could contain. After the Gila River series is completed in 2030, I plan to shift my focus to the Pee Posh (Maricopa) and the story of their struggle to secure rights to Salt River water. I also have several federal-Indian policy books in the works.
Damming the Gila shifts focus toward the Coolidge Dam and its failed promise to benefit the Gila River Indian Community. Was it politics, lack of foresight, or something else entirely that made this project flop?
Coolidge Dam and the San Carlos Irrigation Project (SCIP) were hailed in the 1920s and early 1930s as “the savior of the Pima.” Coolidge Dam was the central component of the SCIP as it regulated flows and stored water for future needs. It was also first and foremost for the “benefit of the Pima Indians of the Gila River Indian Reservation.” Ever the master politician, Carl Hayden sold Congress on the SCIP based on the legal and moral claims of the Akimel O’otham, but he then employed a distributive policy to spread the benefits of the irrigation project to include non-Indian growers. These non-tribal growers were politically well-heeled and, as voting constituents, had the ear of Hayden who was not beholden to the Akimel O’otham since they could neither vote prior to 1924, nor exercised much political authority. In the end, it was politics and continued upstream diversions and groundwater pumping that deprived the Community of the benefits of the SCIP.
What lessons should policymakers be taking from this chapter of the Gila River’s history as water becomes an increasingly limited resource in Arizona and the Southwest?
While they had been extraordinary growers prior to upstream diversions, the Akimel O’otham were completely marginalized from the discussions related to the SCIP and the Gila Decree. Pinal County and Arizona political leaders largely ignored the voice of the Akimel O’otham, with the result that there was never any buy-in for the project by the Community since they believed the project and decree deprived them of their rights. Add to this the reality that Akimel O’otham lacked the financial resources to put their water to use—individual tribal growers were assigned uneconomical 10-acre allotments at Gila River and the land could not be mortgaged, combined with the continued theft of their water by Upper Valley growers—left Community growers in a difficult position. The lesson is that policy makers must include a seat at the table of decision making for tribal nations when making decisions that affect all Arizonans.
What are you working on now?
I am currently working on the fourth volume of the Gila River series: Fighting for the Gila. This volume will cover the Community’s legal battles beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1950s and 1960s Indian Claims Commission, the U.S. Court of Claims, and the enforcement of the Gila Decree in federal district court. It will then transition to the Arizona Gila River general stream adjudication. All of these legal engagements culminated in the Arizona Water Settlements Act of 2004. The battle against unlawful diversions and water uses, however, continues today as the Community seeks to enforce the decree and provisions of the water settlement act.
David H. DeJong holds MA and PhD degrees in American Indian policy studies from the University of Arizona. He has published seven books, including Stealing the Gila, as well as dozens of articles about federal Indian policy. DeJong is director of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project, a construction project funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and designed to deliver water—from the Central Arizona Project, the Gila River, and other sources—to the Gila River Indian Reservation.
