Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, November 24th, 1922, the Colorado River Commission officially allocated water rights to the seven U.S. states of the Colorado River Basin, that is Arizona,

California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, all the states that are part of the

rapidly expanding American Southwest and all the states that need water to do that expansion.

This agreement, along with some subsequent agreements, became known as the law of the river and helped ease years of dispute among these states.

So, yes, listeners, this is an episode about water rights and a water rights treaty, but I think anyone who has lived in the region or anyone who has watched Chinatown or Red Joan Didion or has followed more recent climate change developments knows that water is power, especially in

this region. And the story of those seven states who were cut into the agreement is also a story

about who was cut out of those water rights, namely the Navajo tribes that lived in the region.

And that is the thrust of a new podcast series hosted by Charlie Etcidi, a reporter

based at ABC in Houston, but who also lived and reported in Arizona for many years and is

Navajo herself. So Charlie, welcome to the show. Congrats on the new series. And thank you so much

for doing this. Hi. Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about the latest season of

Reclaimed, the Lifeblood of Navajo Nation. And I'm going to tell people a little bit more about

that series in a second. But first, let's welcome, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and

Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. So yeah, Charlie, you mentioned the series is called Reclaimed, the Lifeblood of Navajo Nation,

and it's all about the history of these water disputes and the water compacts.

And also about how right now, 100 years later or so there is a new fight to rework those treaties.

I should also give a shout out that some of our listeners may ring a bell, the Reclaimed series,

and that's because

this is the new season of a series that has previously talked about Tulsa, which we've discussed

on the show, and then was also the home of that series about Emmett Till's mother, which was hosted

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