For now, though, the concern for Flagstaff is whether the tribes will ratify the Little Colorado settlement. Officials have said the Red Gap side agreement with the Navajos would still stand, regardless of the fate of the larger settlement. But without a comprehensive water rights agreement, the city would be back to Square One with the tribes over how much water it can legally pump or store right inside the city limits or draw from the Inner Basin.

Muddying the waters has been a separate Senate bill pushed by U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl that seeks mainly to provide about $300 million for water infrastructure projects on tribal lands that would be possible under the agreement.

Critics have found fault not with that section but another part of the bill that makes the delivery of Colorado River water to a new pipeline on the Rez subject to renewal of the tribal lease for the Navajo Generating Station outside Page.

Fortunately for Flagstaff, the agreement could still take effect without the NGS clause -- the tribes would simply not get the extra water.

But there is also a larger, grassroots backlash growing on the Rez toward the settlement, fueled in part by a distrust of the federal government and its history of broken promises to the tribes.

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