The Moapa Band of Paiute Indians of the Moapa River Indian Reservation are a

federally recognized tribe A federally recognized tribe is a Native American tribe recognized by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs as holding a government-to-government relationship with the US federal government. In the United States, the Native American tribe ...

Southern Paiute The Southern Paiute people () are a tribe of Native Americans who have lived in the Colorado River basin of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, and southern Utah. Bands of Southern Paiute live in scattered locations throughout this territory an ...

, who live in southern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

on the Moapa River

Indian Reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...

Name

In the past, the Moapa Paiute have been called Muappa or Moapat and the Nuwuvi."Moapa Bands of Paiutes, Background."
''The Moapa Bands of Paiutes.'' (retrieved 7 Dec 2009)

Art and material culture

The Moapa are adept at basketry. They traditionally wore clothing made of hide,

yucca ''Yucca'' ( , YUCK-uh) is both the scientific name and common name for a genus native to North America from Panama to southern Canada. It contains 50 accepted species. In addition to yucca, they are also known as Adam's needle or Spanish-bayon ...

fibers, and cliff-rose bark cloth.

History

Southern Paiute practiced irrigation horticulture before contact with Europeans. The Moapa traded with the Spanish in the later 18th and early 19th centuries who arrived here from California and Arizona, yet no missions were built in the area. In 1869 the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

relocated by force the

to the Moapa area. Originally the entire Moapa River watershed and lands along the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

(some of which area is now under

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. L ...

) was assigned to the Moapa; however, in 1875 their reservation was reduced to . They later suffered from decimation by disease in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1941, they organized with a formal constitution. In 1980 the Moapa River reservation was expanded, with about added. People on the reservation continue to suffer high rates of unemployment, and diabetes, resulting in some of the Moapa migrating to other parts of the country to find work.

Reservation

The Moapa River Indian Reservation is located near Moapa Town, Nevada. Moapa River Indian Reservation consists of 71,954 acres (29,119 hectares). As of the census of 2010, the population was 238, up from 206 in 2000. The reservation is crossed from northeast to southwest by the I-15 highway. In the southeast, it is adjacent to

Valley of Fire State Park Valley of Fire State Park is a public recreation and nature preservation area covering nearly located south of Overton, Nevada. The state park derives its name from red sandstone formations, the Aztec Sandstone, which formed from shifting ...

. In particular, Exit 75 of the highway and the local road leading to the west park entrance (formerly Nevada 169, decommissioned in 2001), down to the entrance, belong to the reservation.

Energy

The reservation includes a 250 MW solar power generation facility known as

Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project The Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project is a 250 megawatt (MW AC) photovoltaic power plant located in Clark County, Nevada on the Moapa River lands of the Southern Paiute people. The project was commissioned in March 2017 and was con ...

which generates enough energy to power 111,000 homes, displacing around 341,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Another solar farm

Eagle Shadow Mountain Solar Farm Eagle Shadow Mountain Solar Farm is a planned 420 MWp (300 MWAC) photovoltaic power station north of Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada on the Moapa River Indian Reservation. The facility is being developed by 8minutenergy Renewables and when c ...

is being constructed in the reservation is a planned 300 MW solar project. In 2019, Paiutes agreed with

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally a textile manufacturer, the company transitioned into a conglomerate starting in 1965 under the management of c ...

NV Energy NV Energy is a public utility which generates, transmits and distributes electric service in northern and southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Valley, and provides natural gas service in the Reno – Sparks metropolitan area of northern Neva ...

about two solar and

battery Battery or batterie most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source * Battery indicator, a device whic ...

projects:

8minutenergy Renewables Avantus, formerly known as ''8minute Solar Energy'', is an American photovoltaic (PV) developer of utility-scale PV power plants and energy storage. Founded in 2009 by Tom Buttgenbach and Martin Hermann, it was acquired by KKR fifteen years late ...

develops the Southern Bighorn Solar & Storage Center with a 300 MW_ac solar array and 540 MWh (4 hours of 135 MW) storage. EDF Renouvelables constructs the Arrow Canyon Solar Project with 200 MW_ac solar array and 375

MWh A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a commo ...

(5 hours of 75 MW) storage, operational by 2023.

References

External links

Moapa Band of Paiutes
official website {{coord, 36.5780, -114.7179, region:US-NV, display=title Native American tribes in Nevada Southern Paiute Federally recognized tribes in the United States