The pandemic revealed deep issues related to water access on Navajo Nation, but there was never a clear estimate of how many households lacked potable and piped water. As the worst of the pandemic subsided, Ashley Thacker (Diné, Community Principal Investigator) and Reese Cuddy (Project Manager) led efforts to secure funding for a pilot project in the largest of Navajo Nation’s five agencies, Fort Defiance, surveying families in a door-to-door campaign to assess water access needs. As the Diné Household Water Work (DHWW) team now focuses on expanding across all five agencies, it is also advocating for sustainable solutions.
Ashley and Reese knew that a full household census was not logistically possible, given the vast expanses, largely unpaved roads and informal home addresses. Along with their courageous Diné team members, they determined that the best place to start a pilot would naturally be their home base: the Fort Defiance office for JHCIH. Spanning Arizona and New Mexico, Fort Defiance Agency is the largest of five agencies (akin to counties) that comprise Navajo Nation; with a population of over 42,000 residents. The Fort Defiance Agency alone spans the size of Connecticut and is comprised of 27 chapters or local governance units.
Using Google Earth Pro and publicly available satellite data, the research team identified and randomly selected households for inclusion to ensure a statistically representative sample of the full agency. In the summer of 2023, a highly energetic and tenacious group of interns and local JHCIH team members embarked on the herculean effort of verifying satellite data and physically reaching hundreds of selected households with the survey and water test kits.
“We partnered with AmeriCorps, Diné College and other local entities and also used this opportunity to train up the next generation of Diné students and scientists who joined us to do water quality testing in the field,” recalled Reese. Throughout the pilot, the DHWW team hired 19 interns, ranging from 18 to 30 years of age, from a variety of Navajo communities. “Our team sat down with Chapter officials and community members to look at the map frame by frame, confirming every household. Our surveyors drove over 200,000 miles down these bumpy dirt roads, including evenings and weekends, to make sure that we’re giving residents the best possible opportunity to participate.”
Ashley was involved in training the surveyors as well as conducting interviews. “The core of this work is sitting down with community members and listening to their stories,” she said. “It is such an honor to hold that space. Some of the elders don’t get many visitors, they might live alone or a bit further out. Often, they are so excited to see us, they want to feed our data collectors or give them gifts. Really special moments emerge as we talk. Bearing witness to these life experiences connects me deeply to my community.”
Nearly 1,000 surveys later, the DHWW team has evidence-based insights to share from the pilot study. These include:
Data highlights from Fort Defiance Agency:
- The survey estimated that 27% of homes in Fort Defiance Agency do not have piped water to their homes.
- Bottled water is widely used for drinking by over 72% of households, regardless of whether the homes have piped water access or not. This fact generated new insights into widespread distrust of the safety of available piped water for drinking.
- Water hauling is practiced by 41% of Navajo households. Of those hauling for household purposes, 73% are using the minimum amount of water needed for health and well-being (<13 gallons per person per day). Over a third of those households are using less than 4 gallons/person/day, the minimum required for survival. The burden of water hauling is falling mostly on elders, with over 60% of primary haulers aged 55+.
“These findings provide us with a huge set of clues about where future work can be done, and ways to inform policy that will remove barriers to water access,” Reese summarized. “We’re seeing that some communities have extreme water access challenges, while others have more consistent access but experience other limitations. We’re starting understand, for example, distrust towards the piped water system, which despite meeting safe drinking standards, may look or taste unappealing. We’ve uncovered bureaucratic reasons some homes are not connected to water networks. There are a wide range of solutions, some of which are well within reach.”
As the DHWW team aspires to replicate the survey across Navajo Nation and leverage the results in policy discussions, survey participants are front of mind. “I hear the echo of their voices in the data we’re producing – the Indigenous experience is driving the Western research,” Ashley shared. “Every aspect we’re trying to do mindfully, even in terms of disseminating the results to participating communities, by reflecting back their stories along with the big picture of what we’re learning.”
Next steps for Diné Household Water Work:
- Expansion across Navajo Nation [Funding Needed]: Following the success of the pilot study in Fort Defiance, the study is now being replicated in Chinle Agency where it is over 64% completed. Although the DHWW team has approval to conduct the work in all five agencies to span Navajo Nation, CIH requires funding to complete the remaining three agencies (Eastern, Northern and Western Agencies). See map above.
- Policy work: By gathering the data needed to quantify the water access gap on Navajo Nation, the DHWW team has established a foundation for finding sustainable solutions. Through partnerships with key water stakeholders, the team is now communicating results to tribal leadership, federal agencies and community-based organizations, elevating water access as a policy priority and creating momentum for change.
- Replication in other tribal communities: The Diné Household Water Survey was designed as a community needs assessment model for any tribal community to scale and customize. As tribal nations are the communities most impacted by water access issues in the United States, the team aims to share the methods and tools for this work beyond Navajo Nation.
The DHWW’s efforts to assess and document the household water needs of Diné families represent a crucial step toward ensuring safe, sustainable, and scalable water access across Navajo Nation. The data will be instrumental in guiding future public health interventions and policy initiatives. As Ashley confirmed, “A whole range of emotions come up from survey participants, but the main one that emerges is hope- especially from those who don’t yet have running water. They understand we’re not promising immediate change, but by showing up and listening, we’re demonstrating that their stories have the power to impact policy in a way that can lead to more reliable water access in the future.”
If you are interested in funding these vital efforts, please contact our Director of Development, Kathleen Grealish, at kgreali1@jhu.edu.