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

federally recognized tribe This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Unite ...

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 and ha ...

, who live in southern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

on the Moapa River Indian Reservation. They were in the past called the Muappa / Moapat and the Nuwuvi.

Art and material culture

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

yucca ''Yucca'' is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitis ...

fibers, and cliff-rose bark cloth.

History

The Moapa practiced irrigation agriculture 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 (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

relocated by force the

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

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

(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 is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The population was 1,025 at the 2010 census. It is the largest town in Clark County by land area. Both the second and the third tallest s ...

. 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 s ...

. 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 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, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...

's NV Energy about two solar and

battery Battery 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 *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

projects:

8minutenergy Renewables 8minute Solar Energy is an American photovoltaic (PV) developer of utility-scale PV power plants and energy storage. It has developed solar farms that includes Eagle Shadow Mountain Solar Farm which is a 420 MWp (300 MWAC) photovoltaic pow ...

develops the 300 MW(ac) Southern Bighorn Solar & Storage Center with 540 MWh (4 hours of 135 MW) storage.

EDF Renouvelables EDF Renewables (formerly ''EDF Renouvelables'') is a wholly owned subsidiary of the French utility EDF Group, specializing in renewable energy production. As an integrated operator, the Group develops and finances the construction of renewable en ...

constructs the 200 MW(ac) Arrow Canyon Solar Project with 375

MWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bill ...

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

References

{{authority control Native American tribes in Nevada Paiute Federally recognized tribes in the United States