HOW NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS FILL THE ‘WATER GAP’ IN PARTS OF THE NAVAJO NATION

Decades of resource extraction, political conflict, climate change and bureaucratic mistakes have left many residents of the Navajo Nation without sufficient access to drinking water supplies. Although several federal programs are available, the requirements of many isolated families on the Navajo Reservation are not satisfied. In fact, government agencies often limit access to wells that cannot be adequately monitored even when there are no other local sources for drinking water. Nonprofit organizations, involving student and professional volunteers have addressed some of the immediate needs of these isolated families. In the Ramah Chapter, a detached section of the Navajo Reservation, about 1/3 of the residents relied on unregulated stock wells for drinking water and were concerned about their water quality. Volunteers from Engineers Without Borders carried out a survey of 21 of these stock wells and determined that with the exception of one well, all of the wells met both USEPA primary and secondary maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). In the Black Falls and Black Mesa areas of the Navajo Nation, historical uranium and coal mining operations have left sources of uranium and arsenic that contaminate surface and groundwaters. Residents must haul water to remote places from regulated sources at considerable expense and with extreme difficulty during the monsoon season. The nonprofit organizations, Water Resources Action Project (WRAP), the Forgotten People, and Global Access 2030 are supported by two other nonprofits to address some of the needs of these water haulers. In collaboration with DigDeep, we have supplied low-cost gravity water filters and designed a testing program to minimize contamination occurring during hauling and storing the water. In collaboration with the Native American Emergency Relief, we have carried out pilot tests of innovative harvested rainwater systems combined with the low-cost filters, and a testing program to determine if this water can be used for drinking, especially during the monsoon season when roads may be impassable. However, in some cases, residents have no alternative to using unregulated wells that have warning signs or have been capped. In these cases, future analyses of these wells can help determine which ones are truly dangerous.