KICKAPOO TRIBE
PLUM CREEK RESERVOIR

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Overview

An 1832 treaty says the Kickapoo own the water. Their dry taps say otherwise. This film exposes a 30-year legal siege where "paper rights" meet a brutal reality: a sovereign nation forced to truck in water just to survive.

Synopsis

A 189-year-old promise. A 30-year lawsuit. A 30-square-mile reservation running on empty.

They call it the "Winters Doctrine"-a century-old legal guarantee that Indigenous tribes have the right to enough water to survive. But for the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, "survival" is currently being trucked in at 7 million gallons a pop. While the Delaware River basin is choked with over 20 off-reservation dams-prioritizing upstream industrial and agricultural interests-the Kickapoo people are left with tap water the EPA classifies as a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

THE DRY SEASON is a visceral look at the "paper water" trap. It follows the Tribe's grueling journey through the halls of Congress (S. 2154) and the broken promises of the 1994 Watershed Plan. While politicians debate "acre-feet" and "intergovernmental mandates," families on the reservation are warned not to drink, bathe, or cook with what comes out of their faucets.

From the high-stakes legal battles led by the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) to the Land Office's daily struggle against a crumbling infrastructure, this film strips away the dry legislative jargon to reveal the human cost of systematic deprivation. In a state that claims to value "local solutions," the Kickapoo are being legally suffocated by their own neighbors-all while sitting on the senior-most water rights in the region.

The settlement is signed. The priority date is 1832. But as the riverbed cracks under the Kansas sun, the question remains: How much longer can you live on a right you can't drink?