AT NIGHT, THE LIGHTSof Lake Havasu City’s hotels, boat launches and neighborhoods reflect off the reservoir that gave this busy Arizona tourist town its name. The federal government dammed the Colorado River just downstream in the 1930s, providing the water and recreation opportunities that have allowed the community to flourish.
The opposite side of the reservoir is dark and so quiet that water lapping on the shore and bats clicking overhead can be heard over the distant hum of boat engines. This is the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe’s reservation in California. The water that rose behind Parker Dam to create Lake Havasu washed away homes and flooded about 7,000 acres of fertile Chemehuevi land, including where tribal members grazed cattle.
The communities across the reservoir reflect the vast divide in economic opportunities between Indian Country and the rest of the West, which has been perpetuated, in large part, by who received water and who did not.
In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government owed tribes enough water to develop a permanent home on their reservations, and that their
