Traveling in the vicinity of Navajo Nation, the largest tribal nation in the U.S. for both population and land mass, an unusual feature of many vehicles stands out: Large volume water tanks, filling the entirety of a truck bed, headed to homesteads far and wide. “Water hauling”, as it is known, is a time-honored lifestyle and necessity for many residents of Diné Bikéyah who either do not have piped water at their residence or need to supplement their supply for both the people and livestock in their care.
The ubiquity of water hauling raises a basic question: “How many households on Navajo Nation do not have piped water?”. Until recently, the only answers were speculative – estimates ranged anywhere from 15-40% of households and lacked the specificity needed to assess contributing factors and related health concerns. Enter, the CIH Diné Household Water Work (DHWW) team, which for the past four years has endeavored to systematically collect the missing water access data from across Navajo Nation and, in the process, collect powerful testimony from community members.
While shaped by the urgencies of the COVID-19 pandemic, the seed of this ambitious work was planted by Family Spirit home visitors conducting the Preventing Early Childhood Obesity (PECO) study. “I asked participating moms tons of questions about the types of beverages their children and family were drinking,” recalls Ashley Thacker, a Diné tribal member and Community Principal Investigator for the DHWW team. “We took a deep dive into the root causes of sugar sweetened beverage consumption early in life and the heavy reliance on bottled water – everything we learned pointed to how critical water access is for the health trajectory of Diné babies and kids. We knew we couldn’t stop there.”
Ashley grew up in Crystal, New Mexico on the Navajo Nation. “I was raised to have great respect for water. I always had classmates, friends, family – including my great grandmother – who didn’t have running water,” she shared. From a young age, Ashley developed a mindset of conservation and protection: “Water is part of our cultural teachings, our ceremonies, our clan names. It’s at the center of Navajo culture, in addition to being a basic necessity for life.”
As the PECO team documented high levels of water insecurity in communities across Navajo Nation, they started developing a plan to address the water access knowledge gaps. Just then, the pandemic hit. “When lockdowns began, water access issues became acute and even hazardous. So we pivoted to build over 500 hand washing stations, provide water filters and partner with the IHS and local Chapter Houses to build additional water access points as well as educate community members on water testing and use of chlorine tablets.”
While the pandemic raised the visibility of water insecurity on Navajo Nation to a national level, the lack of data persisted. In part two, we’ll share the rest of the story: How the Diné Household Water Work team leveraged partnerships plus funding from the Osprey Foundation and private donors to conduct a pilot study in the Fort Defiance agency resulting in nearly 1,000 household surveys and fresh evidence-based insights.
Until then, we’ll leave you with Ashley’s reflection: “What I’ve come to learn through this study is that tribal communities lean on their resilience and cultural strengths rather than deficits. Those are the stories we’re hearing repeated by a group of people who have learned generation upon generation how to adapt and work with neighbors, with relatives and with partners to ensure their households have adequate water.”