A hundred and fifty years ago, the federal government was relocating tribes and nations onto lands set aside as reservations, to hold and to keep Native Americans, of the fairly new country of United States of America. With the reservations came the implied promise of water and food to fit the needs, both present and future of the newly relocated tribal communities. Most of these tribal communities are still rich with resources and the most valuable of them all is water. “Once we had a River” is about five tribes, the La Jolla, Rincon, Pala, Pauma and San Pasqual Tribes. All of these tribes relied on the San Luis Rey River to provide for them water to drink and to irrigate their crops. Four of the tribes, the Pala, Pauma, Rincon and La Jolla were always connected to the places where they were placed onto reservations. The Cupeno Indians were forced to move from Warner’s Hot Springs, at the headwaters of the San Luis Rey at the turn of the century, because a former Governor of California wanted them removed. The San Pasqual Indians were also moved in the late 1800’s from beautiful, farm-able, San Pasqual Valley to a barren piece of mountain top. In 1897, the newly formed city of Escondido illegally built a diversion dam on the La Jolla Indian Reservation. The La Jolla Reservation is near the headwaters of the river. Escondido then built the longest gravity flow canal ever built for its time, an engineering feat of magnificence. This canal diverted all of the water of the San Luis Rey River around the Indian reservations down to the farmlands of Escondido, where the Sunkist Orange became famous. A Supreme Court decision in 1908, confirmed the new water rights of the Indian tribes, under what is known as, “The Winter’s Doctrine”. Then in 1912 the US Government gave all of those same water rights away to the Escondido Water District, totally neglecting their trust responsibility to manage Indian lands and the water they needed to survive. This caused a major conflict between the native and non-native communities. In 1967, California Indian Legal Services (CILS) was formed. It was the very first legal entity designed to represent the most under represented ethnicity in the US. It began representing the five tribes in their battle to regain the water to their valley. CILS attorney Bob Pelsyger told the tribes back in 1967, “water is like liquid gold” in California. He realized after 3 years of discovery and research, that this was a huge issue and would take more resources and money then CILS had access to. This spawned the creation of the Native American Rights Fund. Forty Seven years later, after millions of dollars were spent in litigation and over 20 attorneys became involved in the case, the cities of Escondido, the Vista Irrigation Water District and the 5 bands, were ready to sign the San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement Act, but now there was a problem. The US government, whom initiated the Act, wouldn’t sign. With only speculation as to why they wouldn’t sign, many believe it would set a precedent that will change the balance of water and Indian law throughout the Country. The San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement Act was championed by Congressman Packard and Senator Cranston back in 1988. It was created because the litigation process wasn’t working. This was meant to expedite the process and for the most part it started working. The competing entities were finally working together, the federal government was owning up to its mistake from a 100 years prior, and the tribes were full of hope that they would soon be able to have accessible water. Before Casinos, before services were more abundant on reservations, it was just a struggle to get by. Worrying about water and why the river stopped flowing was something to big to really understand. The fact that something other than just a long drought or that the population boom in Escondido had anything to do with how little water flowed, was unthinkable. It wasn’t until CILS held a town meeting on the Pala Reservation that they even realized they had rights and could fight the city of Escondido for taking all of their water. Water is more important than anything else we have. People in countries like the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan can turn on faucets and expect clean drinkable water. We are accustomed to just having it. Most people don’t even realize where their water comes from or what efforts were made to bring that water to their homes. But what happens when it starts to become scarce, even in prosperous countries like the US. The US response to CILS is, “What’s in it for the United States?”