Phoenix Area Office - Programs & Activities
The Native American Affairs Office
FEATURE STORY: Agreement Signed for the care of Central Arizona Project Artifacts
The Phoenix Area Office's Native American Affairs Office (NAAO) provides a direct point of contact for tribes throughout Arizona to address tribal needs and to ensure consistency in Reclamation/tribal relationships. The primary missions of the Phoenix Native American Affairs Office are to fulfill the mandates of Reclamation law and policy as they apply specifically to Native Americans and to assist area Indian tribes in their development of water and related infrastructure on their reservations.
Tribes are sovereign nations, much like states are sovereign bodies, maintaining their own laws, regulationsregulations, and customs. Unlike states, however, the relationship between the Federal government and the tribes is a government-to-government relationship, in which the U.S. maintains a statutory trust responsibility. In 1975, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act (P.L. 93-638) which empowered the tribes to assume more responsibility and control of their tribal programs and functions. In essence, this means that the tribes, at their discretion, under the terms and conditions of P.L. 93-638, may request and assume responsibility for programs or projects traditionally performed by federal agencies within the Department of Interior and Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, PXAO was the first non-BIA agency to execute an annual funding agreement under the self-governance provisions of P.L. 93-638.
Phoenix Area Office Contact:
Lawrence Marquez
Native American Affairs Office Manager
623-773-6213
LMarquez@usbr.gov
Specifically, the Phoenix Area Office NAAO has been the focal point for the planning, design and construction of the Indian distribution and delivery systems associated with the Central Arizona Project and implementation of multiple Arizona Indian Water Rights settlements.
Additionally, the Phoenix Area Office NAAO assists local tribes in developing, rehabilitating, or enhancing existing water related infrastructure including, but not limited to, projects such as:
- Hopi Tribe Clean Energy Strategic Plan
- Navajo Nation improvements to Many Farms Facilities
- Navajo Nation Bodaway Gap Well improvements
- Navajo Nation Leupp Well improvements
- Pascua Yaqui Tribe Irrigation improvements
- San Carlos Apache Tribe Stock Water Demo Project
- White Mountain Apache Tribe SCADA System
- Yavapai Apache Nation Infrastructure Repair Drought and Planning
For information on the Bureau of Reclamation's Native American Assistance Programs throughout the Southwest, visit: http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g2000/indian.html.
