Irene Yazzie can't think of anyone who lives within 10 miles of her farm on the Navajo Nation who has clean water in their homes, including hers. In the far reaches of the reservation in northeastern Arizona, near where the red rock hills of Monument Valley rise above the desert floor, indoor plumbing may seem like a luxury.
“I don't know if people understand how hard life is here,” said Yazzie, 71.
Help could be on the way if Congress approves a historic agreement reached between the Southern Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Paiute Tribes and the state of Arizona that would resolve all of their outstanding water rights claims to the Colorado River Basin.
The agreement, which all three tribes have now approved, marks a historic milestone for indigenous nations who have fought for decades for their fair share of the water that flows through their ancestral lands.
Water claims with New Mexico and Utah had already been settled. Arizona had been the only one resisting. The 27,400-square-mile Navajo reservation, the largest in the country, stretches across parts of all three states, with enormous distances between towns and even individual homes.
While millions of people in inland Southwest and Southern California turn to the Colorado River to sustain their cities and crops, Yazzie's tribe has lacked pipelines connecting it to this precious (and overburdened) waterway.
Several days a week, Yazzie or one of her two adult children drive an hour over bumpy dirt and gravel roads to reach a tribal community center that allows residents to pump water for a fee. Once back home, Yazzie asks her son to fill a cistern in the family garden.
“I'm always carrying water,” Yazzie said recently by phone.
Shanna Yazzie, a member of the Navajo Nation, talks with Irene Yazzie about her water needs at a community water reservoir in Dennehotso, Arizona.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Yazzie and his neighbors outside the Navajo village of Dennehotso are not the only ones living with water shortages. An estimated 30% of homes on the Navajo reservation do not have indoor plumbing, and many who live in remote areas have to power their homes with generators because they are also not connected to the electrical grid.
During a signing event in the tribal capital of Window Rock, Arizona, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said the water agreement is especially meaningful for reservation residents who are forced to haul water simply to access a basic need of life. In some cases, residents share their water supply with family and friends, while others get help from nonprofit organizations that offer free water system installations.
While the agreement has been a long time in the making, the effort to bring clean water to tribal members' homes has taken on new urgency in recent years due to droughts caused by climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and the battle among the southwestern states. to secure their share of water from the river basin.
The country's volatile politics and the impending presidential elections are also a priority for indigenous leaders. The tribes will need both congressional approval and a presidential signature before the new agreement can take effect.
President Biden's Democratic administration is seen by some tribal officials as more supportive of water rights claims and ancestral land protection than Biden's predecessor and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, although both, as presidents, have acted in support of expanding access to water. In 2020, the Trump administration backed an agreement between the Navajo Nation and Utah that resolved all water rights claims in the state and authorized about $220 million in federal funds to help build water infrastructure. Since Biden took office in 2021, his administration has directed hundreds of millions of dollars to Indian tribes for water projects.
In 2023, however, the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to Navajo efforts to expand water access when it ruled that the federal government is not legally obligated to assist in the construction of pipelines. and other infrastructure to bring drinking water to the reserve. residents.
“Last year was a gut punch that the (U.S. Supreme Court) was not going to help us,” Nygren said at the signing ceremony. “But now we have our own lawyers, water experts, hydrologists and we can calculate how much water belongs to us.”
Shanna Yazzie, a member of the Navajo Nation, distributes water and other supplies on the Navajo reservation in Cameron, Arizona, in March 2020.
(Gina Ferazzi/Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Under the finalized agreement, the Navajo will receive “a substantial amount of the water from the upper basin of the Colorado River, some water from the lower basin, all groundwater underlying the Navajo Nation, all surface water reaching the Navajo Nation from the Little Colorado River and all wash waters. water that reaches the Nation south of the Hopi reservation,” according to the Navajo Nation Council.
The agreement calls for the federal government to allocate $5 billion to build critical infrastructure to connect the territory's surface and groundwater sources to the communities that need them. It also gives the Navajo the flexibility to move Arizona water from the upper Colorado River basin to the lower basin and to divert water in New Mexico and Utah to Navajo communities in Arizona if that is the closest source to those residents. .
“Obviously, living on the Navajo reservation, we have no borders; this is just a part of our homeland, so building a lot of infrastructure for water, sewer and power lines is huge,” said Joelynn Ashley, who chairs the Navajo Reservation . National Water Rights Commission and represents the areas bordering the river.
Ashley said that while many Navajo have long relied on groundwater, uranium and arsenic contamination, as well as high levels of salinity, make its use unsafe. And some wells simply don't produce enough water to meet demand.
“We just want to be able to use all of our water because we have a lot of places where there is no quantity or quality of water,” Ashley said.
Yazzie says the arrival of pipes and water coming out of a faucet into her home couldn't come soon enough. She looks forward to the day when she doesn't have to drive 16 miles each way to supply water to her family, as well as her 18 cows, 15 goats and two horses.
“It's a nuisance,” he said.
