Vasquez Visits Zuni Salt Lake, Reaffirms Support for Tribal Water Settlement

Mining claims and mineral leasing would be permanently banned across 92,364 acres surrounding Zuni Pueblo's sacred Salt Lake under legislation that Rep. Gabe Vasquez reaffirmed support for Sunday, following a site visit with Gov. Arden Kucate and Lt. Gov. Cordelia Hooee.

Vasquez met with Pueblo leadership at the lake to reinforce his commitment to the Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act, introduced as H.R. 1444 in the 119th Congress. The House bill remains before the Committee on Natural Resources. Its Senate companion, S. 564, passed out of committee unanimously on March 5, 2025, and awaits a full Senate floor vote.

The legislation covers two distinct areas. Title I ratifies a 2023 water rights agreement between Zuni Pueblo, the State of New Mexico, the New Mexico state engineer, and the federal government, resolving long-disputed claims to the Zuni River Stream System and establishing a Settlement Trust Fund backed by $685 million for Zuni water infrastructure. New Mexico would contribute an additional $1.25 million under the settlement's terms.

Title II targets what Zuni leaders describe as the lake's most concrete remaining threat. A U.S. Geological Survey study found that groundwater accounts for as much as 77 percent of the lake's total annual inflow, roughly 441 acre-feet per year, flowing into a basin only four feet deep at its fullest. By withdrawing 92,364 surrounding federal acres from mining patents, mineral leasing, and land disposal laws, the bill would foreclose the permitting pathway that previous coal extraction proposals used to advance toward federal approval.

"The Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act would help us restore our river, provide for our people, and build the necessary infrastructure for our future," Gov. Kucate testified before the House Natural Resources Committee in 2024, alongside Vasquez.

The settlement carries a hard expiration: a U.S. District Court must approve the agreement and all parties must execute it before July 1, 2030, or the settlement lapses entirely. With H.R. 1444 still in committee, Sunday's visit underscores the pressure Vasquez and Zuni leadership are placing on the House to act before that clock runs out.

Known to the Zuni as Ma'kya'a and located roughly 60 miles south of the Pueblo, Salt Lake anchors a 185,000-acre sanctuary that has served as neutral ceremonial ground for Zuni, Hopi, Acoma, Laguna, Navajo, and Apache communities for centuries. The federal government returned 5,000 acres immediately surrounding the lake to Zuni control in 1985, but the broader sanctuary withdrawal protecting the full zone hinges on this legislation passing before the 2030 deadline.