Over the past six years, the Diné Household Water Survey (DHWS) team has travelled countless miles down unpaved roads and spoken with thousands of community members to arrive at this essential static: approximately one in four households on Navajo Nation does not have running water in the study population. The time and labor-intensive need to haul water for daily usage (drinking, cooking, cleaning, and caring for livestock) still remains a fact of life for young Diné as well as the elders who have spent their lives doing the same.
While many families have waited generations for water infrastructure, there is a new hope building as water rights settlements, high-impact partnerships, and community-led research efforts converge. For insights on how the DHWS efforts are building towards the vision of broad water connectivity on the reservation, we spoke with Ashley Thacker (Diné) about the evolution of the program she has helped to lead since it began in 2019.
“When this started, there was just four of us at our local office planning a research study. Today it has grown into an important piece of the puzzle, which our partners are recognizing,” Ashley said, referring the team’s multitude of partners spanning the tribal, nonprofit, private and public sectors. “We’re seeing them align around the data we’ve collected with the goal of solutions. Right now, it’s opening up bigger opportunities than we could have imagined.”
Filling a Critical Data Gap
CIH’s nascent work to understand water access became critical overnight when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. The Navajo Nation had the highest mortality rate in the United States and handwashing became essential, yet challenging due to a lack of access within homes. Suddenly, there was real urgency for increasing water infrastructure, but limited understanding of the scale of the problem.
“The data available at the time wasn’t cohesive, or up to date,” Ashley recalled, “it didn’t go into the detail we needed and the wide range in estimated water access was simply unreliable.”
Knowing that accurate baseline information was a prerequisite to planning effective solutions, Ashley and her team based in Fort Defiance, AZ established the Diné Household Water Survey (DHWS).
“They saw the opportunity to help with not only research skills, but deep knowledge and respect for the local community. We realized, ‘this is our shot’ to collect this information in a culturally responsive and culturally tailored way”.
—Ashley Thacker
The first phase of DHWS focused on Fort Defiance Agency, where the researchers surveyed residents at randomly selected homes to achieve a representative sampling of water access, water hauling practices, drinking water preferences, and the realities families face each day. The data collection, over the course of 15 months, involved scaling up the team with local interns trained with an emphasis on respect, care and precision.
Next, the team expanded northward to Chinle Agency, allowing them to compare findings across different regions. The results were both surprising and validating: across both agencies, approximately one in four households lacked access to piped water.
“We had no expectations, we just wanted to learn from the numbers,” Thacker said. “I think that’s been one of the most fascinating aspects—that our percentages in two very different agencies are so close,” Ashley said, referring to the finding of 26.7% in Fort Defiance and 26.3% in Chinle.
The consistency of this key finding provided one of the clearest pictures yet of household water access across large portions of the Navajo Nation.
Connecting with Solutions
With the survey complete in two of Navajo Nation’s five agencies, the team was approached by DigDeep, a nonprofit organization focused on closing the U.S. water gap, about entering a partnership. The work would take place in Naschitti Chapter, a smaller community located on the New Mexico side of the Navajo Nation.
In Naschitti, the partnership combined two strengths: the DHWS team measured water access by visiting every household, while DigDeep helped connect families to services that make it easier to get water. This marked a shift for the DHWS team from mainly doing research to helping deliver concrete solutions for families.
“We’ve always dreamed that this data would lead to our People actually getting connected to water”.
—Ashley Thacker
“A major part of our approach is meeting community members and understanding how better water solutions can improve their daily lives -whether it’s a pipe installation, a water filter, water quality testing, or figuring out why a home that’s close to an existing water line still isn’t connected and the steps to make it happen”, Ashley confirmed.
Turning Surveys into Solutions
The dream of the DHWS team is coming closer to reality with a major opportunity at their doorstep: a contract with the Indian Health Service Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction (IHS SFC). The team is now developing a methodology to map, enroll and assess every household on the Navajo Nation without access to piped water infrastructure and wastewater services. This work is building on the DHWS lessons learned at the core of JHCIH’s work – that centering the community in data collection and outreach and engagement efforts is the key to success.
The team’s formidable task for the IHS now is to make a plan to visit all 110 Chapters including every household that does not have a water connection. At each home, field staff would evaluate existing infrastructure and interview residents to determine eligibility for services from the IHS SFC. This effort would revolutionize the data available to tribal officials, providing a comprehensive water needs assessment for unpiped houses across entire Navajo Nation.
“Seeing [our data] point toward this scale of action is way bigger than I could’ve hoped for” Ashley said. “If it comes to fruition the way we’re planning, people won’t get lost in the cracks and hopefully it will lead to a lot more homes getting connected to safe water.”
While the process of securing water for families across Navajo Nation is complex, the pieces are beginning to align. Both the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act and the Navajo Nation Rio San José Stream System Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025 have been introduced to Congress and gained bipartisan support. They recognize and settle certain water rights claim while also providing the funding needed to realize those claims and build the water infrastructure that will deliver the water to communities.
The momentum towards water rights comes at the same time that the DHWS team and technical partners are providing tools to the IHS SFC and Navajo Tribal Utility Authority to implement sustainable solutions for households in need.
“It’s really, really exciting” Ashley said of the possibilities ahead. “Think of this as a marathon – with so many more steps to go, so many people needing to go in the same direction. We keep going because we know, from our own relatives, that these connections to safe water will be a win for everyone. We feel a huge sense of responsibility along with a sense of being cheered on by our partners and the community. I get goosebumps thinking about it.”
The DHWS work has been catalyzed by generous support from the Osprey Foundation, DigDeep and two Anonymous donors.
Your contributions can help support community-led research and partnerships that are advancing practical solutions to improve water access for families across the Navajo Nation.
