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LAPOINT, Duchesne County — The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation has sued a Utah farmer in the latest step of a decade-long water dispute between the two parties.
The tribe claims the farmer has diverted water from the tribe that is protected by multiple treaties and that he has used tribal land to grow crops, according to a federal lawsuit filed on April 25.
"Defendants' actions constitute a substantial and unreasonable interference with public rights within the Ute Tribe's jurisdiction, including, inter alia, the right to public health and safety and comfort, the right to use and enjoy natural resources and the right to use and enjoy private and public property," the lawsuit states.
A judge in a previous lawsuit ruled that a Ute tribal court ruling that ordered the farmer to stop diverting the water could not be enforced because the tribal court overstepped its jurisdiction. The ruling did not state whether the farmer is lawfully accessing the water.
Farmer Gregory McKee used water from irrigation canals on his property without issue to irrigate crops and provide drinking water for his cattle for over decade before his estranged wife notified the tribe of the water use in 2012, according to the previous ruling.
"Mrs. McKee also described other improprieties including the defendants' trespass onto tribal lands by virtue of an illegal arrangement between defendant McKee and one or more Ute Indian tribal members and defendants' contamination of tribal waters and adjacent tribal lands by virtue of, inter alia, an inadequate or nonexistent animal waste management system at the defendants' feedlot and the defendants' burial of cattle carcasses on the property, some allegedly infected with disease," the tribe said in the lawsuit.
McKee said he was unaware of the suit before being contacted by KSL.com for comment. His three businesses — T&L Livestock, McKee Farms and G M Fertilizer are also named as defendants in the lawsuit. McKee argued that the tribe should be pursing water rights disputes with the state instead.
"I can't tell you what kind of misery this has been," McKee said. "I took it clear to federal court and won and now they've come back after me again. They're chasing me for a state water right. This is a state issue. They're just trying to beat the poor little guy like me — the tribe is, with all their money, trying to set a precedent in the court. That's all this is about. They know I can't afford to keep fighting."
The water in question is being diverted from the Deep Creek Canal, a conveyance channel for the Uintah Indian Irrigation Project. The irrigation project was established a century ago to provide irrigation water to Ute Indian lands, and the tribe pointed to a 1923 legal ruling that gave Ute Indians rights over waters from Deep Creek Canal.
According to the lawsuit, McKee has argued that his water rights stem from a water appropriation certificate that the state issued to a predecessor owner of his property in 1926 for diverting water out of the Deep Creek Canal. The tribe argues that the certificate instead provides a right to divert water out of the Goodrich Gulch.
The lawsuit also highlights two agreements from 1943 and 1946 that were given to McKee's predecessor that the tribe claim illegally assigned water rights from the Uintah Indian Irrigation Project to McKee's property.
"There is no evidence — nor any recitation in the agreement itself — that the Ute Tribe was properly notified of, or consented to, the transfer of its tribal waters to fee lands located outside of the Uintah Indian Irrigation Project," the tribe said of the 1946 agreement specifically. "Hence, the purported transfer constitutes an illegal conveyance of Indian trust property."
The tribe said in investigating issues brought up by McKee's estranged wife, it learned that at least one Ute tribal member had allowed McKee to grow and harvest crops on tribe-owned land in exchange for "valuable consideration." According to the tribe, such an arrangement is illegal under tribal law and constitutes trespassing.
The tribe also alleges that McKee operates his farm and cattle feedlot "without regard for public health and welfare." The lawsuit states that McKee's wife at the time said that an average of 200 calves die each year at McKee's feedlot from various unknown diseases and the defendant washes three fertilizer tanks that run off onto surrounding tribal lands.
The tribe is seeking both damages and an injunction against McKee. The tribe is represented by J. Preston Stieff Law Offices and the case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Howard C. Nielson, Jr.
