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The Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation

We, the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute, reside in an isolated oasis in the foothills of the majestic Deep Creek Mountains on what is now the Utah/ Nevada state line. Our reservation lies in one of the most sparsely populated regions of the United States, and it has always been our home. Resulting from this isolation, we have benefited by retaining strong cultural ties to Goshute land, our traditions, and a resolute determination to protect our ways. Ironically, water, the most elemental resource in our basin, is the very thing developers now seek to extract and send 300 miles away for Las Vegas suburbs. The Southern Nevada Water Authorities’ pipeline proposal would draw 150,000 acre feet per year from the Great Salt Lake Watershed Basin lowering the water table, drying up our springs, and fundamentally changing access to water over this vast region for plants, wildlife, and people.

Nelms Pond. A collection pool for a sacred spring on the reservation and a Bonneville Cutthroat Trout Nursery.

Clell Pete, CTGR EPA Director

Even a slight reduction in the water table will result in a cascade of wildlife and vegetation impacts directly harming our ability to engage in traditional practices of hunting, gathering, and fishing on ancestral lands. As our former Chairman Rupert Steele has pointed out; “if we lose our language or our lands, we will cease to be Goshute people.” SNWA’s groundwater development application is the biggest threat to the Goshute way of life since European settlers first arrived on Goshute lands more than 150 years ago.

* Natural Springs tethered to the aquifer have sustained Goshute and natural life in the harsh environment of the Great Basin.

The Goshute people request help in getting our rights acknowledged and concerns addressed as this water grab is being considered. Please help by assisting the Tribe or our partners in defending our Goshute way of life, in the place we have called home for thousands of years.

* Ed Naranjo and his son, Kevn Naranjo