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      From: "Robb, Gaylord (IHS/PHX)" <gaylord.robb@ihs.gov> 
      To: <snakevalley@utah.gov> 
      Date: Tuesday - September 29, 2009 11:44 AM 
      Subject: "And the first shall be last" 




      I fail to understand how the public servants of the State of Utah can be
      so amiable to allowing water to be taken out of an aquifer partially in
      Utah and pumped into a completely different water basin. Using that
      water within the same basin from which it is pumped should be a hard and
      fast rule.



      The first people in Utah who used that water for agrarian purposes can't
      seem to get the State to turn loose of one drop. The Paiute Indians were
      growing crops in the Indian Peaks area of Beaver County before Europeans
      ever came into this area and they still can't get a water adjudication
      agreement. SNWA comes into the picture and right away there is talk of
      them getting 52,000 acre feet. For 30 years the Paiute Tribe has been
      requesting that the State recognize their water right but only to be
      ignored or denied. 



      I thought water law in Utah followed the "first in time, first in right"
      rule. The Paiute Indians ancestral home land covered all of Southern
      Utah and their aboriginal water right has never been abrogated. The
      State continues to deny its citizens yet bows to the request of its
      neighbor state. This is not good. The agreement should not be signed and
      Utah should allow its native people their true rights to water for their
      land.



      Thank you,



      Gaylord Robb

      Economic Development Director

      Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah

      440 N. Paiute Drive

      Cedar City, UT  84721

      435 586 1112

      435 559 3687 cell

      <http://www.utahpaiutes.org/> http://www.utahpaiutes.org