Resolution of MWD-Tribal Dispute Near

For seven decades the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians has complained that a Metropolitan Water District tunnel drains water from its Riverside County reservation, taking the life out of tribal crops, vineyards and orchards.

Today, the giant district plans to announce a tentative agreement to resolve the legal dispute that has threatened to disrupt water supplies in the San Jacinto watershed, one of the fastest growing regions in the country.

Under terms of the settlement between the tribe and three water districts -- the MWD, Eastern Municipal Water District and Lake Hemet Municipal Water District -- the Sobobas would receive $28 million, 9,000 acre-feet of water per year, and 127.7 acres of land near the Riverside County community of Winchester.

“Our long battle is nearly over,” said Tribal Chairman Robert James Salgado Sr., 60, who has been involved in negotiations for 20 years. “We can once again become the strong reservation we once were before the man-made drought hit us.”

Tribal attorney Karl Johnson said the settlement could “end a history of problems” for the Sobobas.

Water supplies began disappearing from the 5,000-acre reservation in the 1880s when white settlers started diverting water from the San Jacinto River, and building dams in upstream tributaries.

Later, ground water pumping depleted the tribe’s water altogether, and by 1910 there was starvation in what had been a lush region of grape vineyards, rows of melon, beans and corn, and extensive orchards of peaches, pears, apricots and oranges.

“The Sobobas managed to drill deeper wells and get some water back,” Johnson said. “But then MWD built a 13-mile-long tunnel through Mt. San Jacinto, which once again drained the reservation lands.”

The reservation is 3 1/2 miles southeast of the 16-foot-high concrete tunnel, an engineering marvel excavated in 1933 with dynamite and hand shovels and designed to haul Colorado River water to Southern California.

Yet, the porous walls of the aqueduct siphoned off a substantial amount of water from communities along the San Jacinto River, drying up creeks and wells on the reservation.

Through the 1940s and 1950s, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs tried and failed to hash out a settlement. In the 1970s, the tribe began trucking water into the reservation, even as many Soboba farmers started moving away.

A lawsuit filed half a century ago was finally settled in 1991, with the tribe receiving $12 million from the federal government. But the Sobobas maintained their claim that they were losing water to the MWD.

In 2000, the tribe filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeking an injunction requiring the MWD to repair the tunnel to prevent the loss of more ground water, or for payments for its losses over the decades.

Since then, tribal leaders and water district officials have been locked in sometimes tense negotiations in Washington, D.C., on the reservation, and in Los Angeles, San Diego, Tucson and Las Vegas.

Under the tentative agreement to be announced today, “no one acknowledges liability,” said MWD general counsel Jeff Kightlinger.

Overall, “it’s a significant document that resolves a very long, difficult dispute,” Kightlinger said. “We think it wraps up everyone’s concerns, and avoids what could have been an expensive, long, drawn-out adjudication that could have ultimately hurt water supplies throughout the region.”

Kightlinger said he expects final agreement forms to be prepared by June 30. Approval by Congress, which is required, could come in the fall.

Tribal officials expect to prosper from the compensation, which may include federal funds for water distribution systems and development of ground water supplies in recharge basins.

It could also mean that some tribal members who moved away over the years because the land could not support agriculture, livestock or even a drinking water system, will come home.

The property near Winchester is regarded as prime for commercial development. It is near where state and county officials expect to build an artery from Interstate 215 leading to MWD’s Diamond Valley Lake reservoir near Hemet.

The lake, which holds about 800,000 acre-feet of water, is expected to become a major recreational site, drawing 2 million people a year to the region.

“We can now do some long-range planning,” Salgado said. “We are thinking of putting in an adequate sewer system, and building as many as 75 new homes.”