I almost cried when I read about this today. You may remember the Gold King Mine spill, which contaminated precious water in Native American country in New Mexico last year. I am not Native American, but this made me bitter to think about. The Native Americans there mentioned the centrality of the water to their spirituality. But even from a non-spiritual point of view, too, it is easy to see how horrifying this is. With every change in our natural environment, there is none that has concerned me more than the pollution and depletion of our waterways. We need fuel, but we need seafood and fresh water MORE.
However, I was unaware that there are apparently contaminated Superfund sites, for instance from Uranium mining all the way back through the 1950s, all through the southwest, including New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and other states. We have a brewing emergency around water, whether fresh water for drinking and farm irrigation, or the sea life that moves in our country’s fresh- and salt-water sources. This is something none of us should take for granted. But many among the Navajo don’t have any at all.
A man named George McGraw (apparently, he studied law, but is not actually a practicing “human rights lawyer,” as some reports have it) has created a charity, the Navajo Water Project, to help bring water to the Navajo. With 40% of the Navajo Nation having no running water or toilets, many of them living in remote locations, the need for this service is palpable. With 44% of their population living in poverty, they need this help more than many. People like Darlene Arviso, the “water lady,” are providing it:
Everyone should have fresh water.
Oh, and: screw fracking, too.
3/18/16, 12:35 p.m. PST, UPDATE: thanks for the recommends and shares, folks! Poster benamery21 helpfully provided this link to the Navajo Nation water plan, for reference.