It was the end of February 24 when the Navajo water rights team made the announcement.

They had a settlement deal on the table. This surprised a lot of Navajo people. They had no

idea that a deal was so close. The last time the Navajo Nation had been this near to settling their water

rights in Arizona was over a decade ago, back when the attempt failed in 2012. And now, the same

question remained. Would the people support this deal? Well, let me be clear.

We've always had to get it done.

We just have to get it done.

The announcement may have caught some people off guard,

but not Bitta Becker.

She's the chief legal counsel to the president and VP of the Navajo Nation

and a citizen of the nation herself.

She'd been working on this deal for a long time.

She was in the conference rooms in Phoenix where the discussions had been simmering for years.

But by the fall of 2023, things got real.

Yeah, I remember we invited somebody into one of the room once, and he left saying,

oh my God, it's so intense in there.

But there's just so many interests.

And I forget how many parties there are to the settlement, over 30.

And so that's the hard part of it.

The hard part of it is every interest walking out saying, yes, I got the best deal I could.

Those interests included the Navajo team, of course, and officials from the state and federal

government.

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