Horton ? Members of the Kickapoo Nation hope a high-ranking federal official can help them fix a long-term water supply problem that climaxed last year during a drought.

David Anderson, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs with the U.S. Department of the Interior, met with about 150 members of the tribe Thursday at a conference center west of Horton.

Tribal chairman Steve Cadue said Anderson assured the tribal council at a closed-door meeting earlier in the day that he would help use eminent domain to acquire private property for a reservoir.

“He made the personal commitment that he will seek the solution to the Kickapoo water supply,” Cadue said. “He has been given the research from his staff that the eminent domain must be asserted on behalf of the Kickapoo tribe.”

But Anderson was not as committal on whether he would use his authority to begin the eminent domain process.

“That’s a question for our solicitor’s office,” he said.

Currently, the reservation gets its water supply from the Delaware River, which feeds a tiny lake. Last August, the river ran dry, forcing the tribe to haul in 7 million gallons of water.

A plan to fix the tribe’s water problem — a 475-acre reservoir — first was drawn up in 1978. But the project would affect about 1,000 acres of non-tribal land in Nemaha-Brown Watershed Joint District No. 7.

Water district officials have blocked transfer of the land to the tribe, and in January tabled the tribe’s request to use eminent domain to get it.

The reservoir project would cost $5.3 million, with the tribe paying $3.2 million and the federal government paying the rest.

“To flourish does not mean the hauling of water via truck transport to the Kickapoo reservation, as we were forced to do in last year’s drought,” Cadue said. “Nor does it mean to settle for a source of water that meets someone else’s idea of what is enough for the Kickapoo people.”

Tribal leaders say eminent domain is a last resort, but negotiations to buy the property have not panned out.