The Gila River Indian Community, alongside federal partners, celebrated the groundbreaking for the Blackwater Irrigation project on Oct. 3, 2024. The project is one of three major water conservation projects under construction within the community. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror
Recalling the amazing water infrastructure and canal system the Huhugam people developed in southern Arizona is the legacy that Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis thinks about as his tribe breaks ground on two major water conservation projects.
“Our ties to our Huhugam, our historical ties and how incredibly sophisticated they built their water infrastructure, those canals over thousands of years old,” Lewis said. “And here we are, we’re using cutting-edge technology to address our current needs.”
A week after getting funding for three major water conservation projects, the Gila River Indian Community has already broken ground on the first two projects — the Lining of Blackwater Irrigation Canals and the Efficiency Improvements to Gila River Farms.
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Lewis said their work is almost as if they are going back and honoring their past as the tribe builds a bright future for their community regarding water management.
The two projects will improve the tribe’s water use efficiency in the Gila River Indian Community and allow the tribe to commit to keeping more of its water entitlement from Lake Mead in the coming years.
“We’re doing our best to model good behavior in regards to water management,” Lewis said.
He believes that the tribe is leading the way by developing and designing three major projects and working closely with the Bureau of Reclamation team to ensure that the project would benefit not only the Gila River Indian Community but the entire region.
Gila River Farms project
The Gila River Farms project broke ground on Oct. 1. The tribe received $63.8 million in funding to replace nearly 30 miles of up to 90-year-old concrete pipeline laterals on its 12,000-acre farms within the Gila River Indian Community.
“This is a historic amount of funding to address efficiencies, especially as we are dealing with climate change and we’re dealing with addressing all of the critical issues along the Colorado River,” Lewis said at the groundbreaking event.
“We are celebrating a revitalization of our reservation farming operation that we as a community (and) our elders have been waiting for,” the governor said.
According to the tribe, the project will replace the original inefficient concrete pipe installed by the U.S. Indian Irrigation Service between the 1930s and 1950s.
“The pipes are not only outdated and long past their useful lifespan, but they are also unsized based on the modern high flow irrigation demands of the Gila River Farms after it was laser leveled in the 1980s and 1990s,” the tribe stated.
Lewis said being able to update the water infrastructure for the Gila River Farms is a momentous occasion because, before the tribe went into tribal gaming, it relied on Gila River Farms as its primary source of support for the tribe.
“That was our first business,” Lewis said. “That was what kept our community growing.”
Now, the tribe is giving back to the Gila River Farms with a project that will “truly benefit the efficiency,” he added, which benefits all of the Gila River Indian Community.
Gila River Farms was formerly known as the Pima Development Farm, and it was federally operated until the tribe took control from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1935.
Project Director David H. DeJong said that, when the tribe took over, the federal agency indicated the Gila River Indian Community would fail, but the tribe proved “the naysayers wrong.”
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis stands next to the pipelines to be installed as part of Gila River Farms water conservation project on Oct. 2, 2025. The project is one of three majors water projects being constructed within the Gila River Indian Community. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror
From 1935 to the 1980s, the Gila River Farms were built and operated at a slant, with the high ground to the south and the low end to the north.
The original farm was laid out with pipelines; the larger pipes were on the south end, and the smaller ones were on the north end of the farm. The irrigation system was constructed to be gravity-fed.
DeJong said when Gila River Farms went to “dead-level basins” in the 1980s and 1990s, the old irrigation system was no longer available because the farms were leveled and no longer at a slant.
Since the old system was gravity-fed, DeJong said it took much longer to irrigate parts of the farm because of the smaller pipes located on the north and larger ones on the south end.
“Today, Gila River Farms irrigates about 12,000 acres, although due to drought and the community’s commitment to leaving water in Lake Mead to shore up critical infrastructure in the West, (the) community has about a third of that land fallowed,” DeJong said.
But, as the farmlands come back into production to help the Gila River Indian Community reestablish their agricultural hub, DeJong said it is “essential that Gila River Farms be modernized by improving farm efficiencies.”
“This not only protects the community’s water resources, this protects the region’s water resources, and it also helps the community farm to be a model for the community growers,” DeJong said. The Gila River Farms project will replace existing irrigation infrastructure.
“The new pipeline laterals and improved management and infrastructure and technological improvements will enhance water conservation and reduce current spills to practically zero,” DeJong said. The total water saving over 10 years would amount to 42,200 acre-feet.
As part of the funding agreement, the Gila River Indian Community agreed to leave 47,020 acre-feet of its Colorado River water entitlement in Lake Mead over 10 years, beginning in 2025.
Bureau of Reclamation Deputy Commissioner David Palumbo said he is impressed with the work the Gila River Indian Community does and how they develop partnerships to support their community.
“Thank you to the community for stepping up and being a model and an example for such great conservation,” he said. “Our collaborative efforts over the past couple of years have really made a difference in the Colorado River system.”
The water conservation projects are part of the Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program and are part of the phase two proposals.
The program is a part of the commitment made by the Department of the Interior in 2022 to address the drought crisis with prompt and responsive actions and investments to ensure the entire Colorado River Basin can function and support all who rely on it.
Palumbo said Gila River Indian Community is the first tribe and entity to enter a long-term conservation project that will support the health of the Colorado River.
“The community is first in this long-term resilience project to take advantage of this funding and provide much-needed water to stabilize the Colorado River system,” he said.
Blackwater Irrigation project
The Gila River Indian Community broke ground for the Lining of Blackwater Irrigation Canals on Oct. 2, and the project will concrete-line more than seven miles of earthen canals.
“This project will essentially complete a long process of rebuilding our canal system for an incredibly resilient future,” Lewis said.
The canals serve more than 2,000 acres of farmland. DeJong said all the unlined earthen canals are where the Gila River Indian Community experiences water losses that are anywhere from 10% to 40%.
“Lining these with concrete or replacing them with pipe is absolutely essential to conserving water,” he said. The project will concrete-line 16 miles of earthen canals with about five miles being lined with pipe.
The groundbreaking took place next to one of the earthen canals along Blackwater School Road in the Gila River Indian Community.
DeJong said that, as part of the project, they wanted to improve the safety so the canal along the road would be filled and moved a few more feet inland so it would not be right up against the road.
Some earthen canals are located off tribal land, serving growers from the Gila River Indian Community and non-tribal communities.
An earthen canal running along Blackwater School Road is one of multiple within the Gila River Indian Community that will be updated as part of a water conservation project. The community held a groundbreaking event for the Lining of Blackwater Irrigation Canals on Oct. 3, 2024. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror
DeJong said the tribe has about 1,100 acres in production, and since the announcement of updates to their canal system, 500 acres have come into production in the last four months because people are looking forward to the new system.
“We have 300 more acres that are in the works that we anticipate either 2025 or 2026 will be in production,” DeJong added. “This project is having a direct impact because we’re expanding almost 800 acres just because of the improvement.”
Lewis said the Gila River Indian Community received $26.2 million in funding for the project from the Bureau of Reclamation and about $22 million from the Natural Resources Conservation Service with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“No one agency or no one community can do this by themselves,” Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Terry Crosby said during the groundbreaking event. “You have to have great partnerships.”
Construction for the project will be completed at the end of 2025. The tribe said they expect to start seeing the benefits from this project before the implementation of further restrictions on Colorado River water.
The guidelines and strategies established to protect the stability and sustainability of the Colorado River, which supplies more than one-third of the Phoenix area’s water, will expire at the end of 2026.
The Colorado River is experiencing the longest and worst drought on record, driven by hotter temperatures due to climate change.
The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people and fuels hydropower resources in seven U.S. states. It is a crucial resource for 30 tribal nations and two states in Mexico.
The Gila River Indian Community agreed to leave 13,180 acre-feet of their Colorado River water entitlement in Lake Mead over 10 years beginning in 2025.
“We’re grateful to the Gila River Indian Community for leading our way in these long-term investments that will improve the sustainability of the river for the next generation,” Palumbo said, adding that the collaborative efforts are paying off.
The water being conserved and left in Lake Mead will shore up elevations, Palumbo said, which will prevent future shortages.
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