Top official tours Navajo irrigation project

Posted at: 09/18/2009 8:13 AM
By: The Associated Press

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) - Assistant Interior Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry EchoHawk says he will do what he can to help the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, which manages the federally funded Navajo Indian Irrigation Project.

NAPI general manager Tsosie Lewis says construction on the irrigation project has stalled in the past two decades.

Tsosie says the tribe needs EchoHawk's assistance in the future of NAPI and the irrigation project.

The project was authorized by Congress in the 1960s to provide an irrigation system from Navajo Dam to 110,000 acres of Navajo land south of Farmington.

EchoHawk - a Farmington High School graduate - toured parts of the 70,000-acre irrigated agricultural operation Thursday.

NAPI ships 98 percent of its produce nationwide and to Mexico. It reported a profit of $9.5 million last fiscal year.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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