The Northern Ute Tribe is one of three ethnically-related Ute Tribes. The Northern Ute Tribe occupies and administers the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation

Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation

The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Utah, USA. It is the homeland of the Northern Ute Tribe, and is the largest of three Indian reservations inhabited by members of the Ute Tribe of Native Americans. It lies in parts of seven counties; in descending order of land area...

 in northeastern Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

. The population of the Northern Ute Tribe is approximately 3,500.

In 1965, the Northern Ute Tribe agreed to allow the United States Bureau of Reclamation to divert a portion of its water from the Uinta Basin (part of the Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

 Basin) to the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...

. The diversion would provide water supply for the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project

Central Utah Project

The Central Utah Project is a United States federal water project. It was authorized for construction under the Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956 as a participating project...

. In exchange, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to plan and construct the Unitah, Upalco, and Ute Indian Units of the Central Utah Project to provide storage of the Tribe's water. By 1992, the Bureau of Reclamation had made little or no progress on construction of these facilities. To compensate the Tribe for the Bureau of Reclamation's failure to meet its 1965 construction obligations, Title V of the Central Utah Project Completion Act

Central Utah Project Completion Act

The Central Utah Project Completion Act , enacted on October 30, 1992, removed responsibility for completing the Central Utah Project , a federal water project, from the United States Bureau of Reclamation...

 (P.L. 102-575), enacted in 1992, contains the Ute Indian Rights Settlement. Under the settlement, the Northern Tribe received $49.0 million for agricultural development, $29.5 million for recreation and fish and wildlife enhancement, and $125 million for economic development. The Ute Indian Rights Settlement is administered by the United States Department of the Interior.