Just three months ago, Kickapoo Indians were a few dry days away from having to ship in water again.

Summer rains filled the Delaware River here and there, but never enough to ease concerns.

“We go back and forth to the edge, so to speak,” said Damon Williams, a tribal attorney.

For more than 30 years, the tribe in Northeastern Kansas has argued for a reservoir to be built upstream from their reservation to ease their often parched riverbed and low, continually dirty water supply.

But the Plum Creek Dam has never been built. The tribe filed a lawsuit in federal court earlier this year, accusing federal and state officials – and, specifically, the directors of the area’s watershed – of ignoring the tribe’s needs by not building the dam.

In the past, drought left river beds in tribal lands dry and forced the Bureau of Indian Affairs to spend public funds to truck in fresh water.

“Water is life. We need good, safe, dependable drinking water,” said Steve Cadue, tribal chairman. “If this were a white man community project, it would already be done.”

Now, recent court filings may have provided some answers as to why the Plum Creek Reservoir was never built despite a decade-old agreement and the federal funding to build it.

The watershed plan began in 1983 as a way to prevent flooding downstream, in areas around Perry Lake and farther, near Lawrence.

The project culminated with an agreement in 1994 to fully develop the watershed project, including several smaller water retainers and the Plum Creek Reservoir to provide the Kickapoo Nation its federally protected rights to drinking water, the lawsuit alleges.

Since then, more than a dozen smaller projects have been built using a combination of local and federal funds, records show – including ponds for land owners and smaller dams along the track of the Delaware and its tributaries.

Negotiations fail

For the past several years, Kickapoo officials have been bargaining with about a dozen landowners who live in either the footprint of the proposed reservoir or the adjacent flood plain, trying to get the needed land.

But for the most part, land owners around Plum Creek have told them no.

“My property’s not for sale,” said Linda Lierz, whose farm would become floodland for the reservoir. “We’d have to move our farmstead, and we’re not willing to do that.”

Plus, Lierz and other detractors said, the Kickapoo Nation could get its water somewhere else, such as nearby towns with waterlines running to the reservation.

Since a 1994 agreement, which required federal and state cooperation, Cadue and other officials said the watershed district board had an obligation to authorize eminent domain, if necessary, to acquire the land for the project.

But time after time, in the face of property owners’ refusal to give up land, the board has delayed the issue, records show.

The issue came to a head during a special meeting of the watershed district in July 2003, records show.

At the meeting, Cadue said that the tribe had sent letters to landowners, along with appraisals, as steps toward acquiring the property needed to build the dam.

But at least once during that special meeting, landowners spoke out against negotiating with the tribe while under the threat of condemnation.

In September 2003, Cadue wrote U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton, asking the federal government to condemn the land because local authorities wouldn’t.

“The local watershed board … cannot or refuses to assert any such authority on behalf of the Tribe,” Cadue wrote.

The request was denied, records show.

No action

Dexter Davis, president of the watershed board, said that he didn’t feel one way or the other about using eminent domain to acquire the necessary land for the project.

“We would like to build everything in the plan,” Davis said.

But even though the Plum Creek project received support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other governing bodies, Davis and the watershed board wouldn’t authorize the use of eminent domain because of arguments from the landowners.

Eventually, the issue was tabled, and has been ever since.

Cadue said he knew the problem would require litigation after the 2003 drought. Even then, he said, it was apparent that the board would not use eminent domain, even though the original 1994 agreement suggested that could be necessary to proceed with the watershed development.

“We knew we had to do something,” Cadue said. “We could not continue to rely on the white man’s word of honor.”

But Lierz said her family must be able to keep the land they need. She said she felt like, in the Kickapoo Nation’s eyes, she was just “in the way.”

No, she said, it seems there is no room for compromise.

“We’re kind of past that now,” she said.