OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – A federal judge said last Thursday he wants a quick and inexpensive resolution to a lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma over tribal water rights.

U.S. District Judge Lee West convened an informal status conference of about two dozen attorneys, tribal and state leaders and officials from Oklahoma City and asked them to submit a list of mediators who might help resolve a lawsuit filed by the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations “in some way that won't take 20 years.”

“These things usually take an enormous amount of time,” West said. “Litigation, for several reasons, has become so much more expensive than it ever was.”

The lawsuit, filed in August in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, seeks an injunction to stop the Oklahoma Water Resources Board from selling its water storage rights to Sardis Lake in southeastern Oklahoma to the Oklahoma City Water Utility Trust. The trust wants a water-use permit to withdraw water from the reservoir, which is located within the historic territories of each of the tribes.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma Solicitor General Patrick Wyrick said the state plans to ask West to stay the federal lawsuit while it asks a state court to determine the extent of the tribes' rights to water in tribal areas, something Wyrick said the tribes have sought in the past.

“We're going to give them that adjudication,” Wyrick said. The state plans to file the lawsuit by Feb. 1 and the state court's findings will determine the guidelines of any water permit involving traditional tribal areas, officials said.

Attorneys for other parties in the lawsuit, including the Oklahoma City Water Utility Trust, said they support the state's plan.

“There has to be adjudication about the extent of rights,” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said.

“We are hopeful this legal course will result in a just outcome for the city, the tribes and other water permit holders in southeast Oklahoma,” Jim Couch, city manager of Oklahoma City and trustee for the water utility, said in a statement following the conference.

The statement said the federal lawsuit is an attempt by the tribes to seize the rights of all water users in the Kiamichi, Clear Boggy and Muddy Boggy basins in southeastern Oklahoma, which provides the water supply for much of the state.

“The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations have no plan for meeting the water needs of Oklahoma City and the state,” Couch said. “We don't want to see Oklahoma's water sold to interests in Texas.”

In September, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the dismissal of two federal lawsuits that sought authorization to transfer water from southeastern Oklahoma to rapidly growing communities in North Texas.

Tribal attorneys expressed skepticism about the state's plans to ask a state court to decide the tribes' water rights. Bob Rabon, general counsel for the Choctaw Nation, said tribal officials have attempted to get the state to acknowledge their rights since the early 1990s.

“It's been a one-sided discussion,” Rabon said.

Michael Burrage, lead counsel for the tribes in the lawsuit, described the state's plan as “just another delay tactic.”

“What they have suggested doesn't solve the problem,” Burrage said following the status conference. He said the tribes want to prohibit the exportation of any water from tribal regions until their water rights are determined.

“We're just saying: `Judge, stop everything until these rights are determined,”' he said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Sardis Lake, which straddles Latimer and Pushmataha counties in a region where Oklahoma City has received water from lakes in the past. The tribes claim that an 1830 treaty gives them authority over water resources in their jurisdictions but that they have been excluded in negotiations between the Water Resources Board and the trust.

Oklahoma City officials maintain that other treaties also need to be considered including one signed by the tribes in 1866 that they claim relinquished tribal rights following the tribes' revolt against the United States during the Civil War.