Navajo Water Supply is Poisoned Worse Than Flint

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Last edited Thu Feb 4, 2016, 01:37 PM - Edit history (1)

SITTING BULL & INM ?@INMSittingBull 10 Apr 2015
‘We’re Going to Be Out of Water’: Navajo Nation Dying of Thirst |
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/04/09/were-going-be-out-water-navajo-nation-dying-thirst-159948 … #Diné #Arizona #Fracking


Horses are dying on the Navajo Nation during these drought-plagued years. Others, as those above, die after getting stuck in mud while scrounging for water.


For centuries, the Diné people have raised their families and livestock on the high desert lands of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. They have survived even the most difficult of conditions. But as drought has dragged on, more or less for two decades—and the climate continues to warm—some are saying the tribal government needs to better protect its water resources and undertake more long-term planning.

“When you’re living in the desert, you don’t expect it to get even worse,” said Russell Begaye, a Navajo Nation Tribal Council Delegate from Shiprock, NM. He pointed out that reservoir levels are dropping, farming plots are becoming sandier, and the rain- and snowfall have declined.

“Some of our leaders, and some of our people concerned about environmental issues are trying to make people aware,” he said. “It's going to get progressively worse, we know that. But as a nation, the government, we are simply not ready.”

According to the most recent national climate change assessment, southwestern tribes—such as the Navajo—are among the most vulnerable to impacts from climate change. Published two years ago, that study notes that Navajo elders have noticed declines in snowfall, surface water and water supplies. Certain sacred springs, medicinal plants, and animals have disappeared or declined and dust storms have increased.

read more: at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/04/09/were-going-be-out-water-navajo-nation-dying-thirst-159948


Navajo Water Supply is Poisoned Worse Than Flint, but No One Cares Because They’re Native American

In the western U.S., water contamination has been a way of life for many tribes. As Brenda Norrell, a news reporter in Indian country, describes, the situation in Navajo nation is “more horrific than in Flint, Michigan.”

Since the 1950s, their water has been poisoned by uranium mining to fuel the nuclear industry and the making of atomic bombs for the U.S. military. Coal mining and coal-fired power plants have added to the mix. The latest assault on Navajo water was carried out by the massive toxic spills into the Animas and San Juan rivers when the EPA recklessly attempted to address the abandoned Gold King mine.

Charmaine White Face, from the Native American organization Defenders of the Black Hills, a group active in South Dakota, notes that “in 2015 the Gold King Mine spill was a wake-up call to address dangers of abandoned mines, but there are currently more than 15,000 toxic uranium mines that remain abandoned throughout the US.”

“For more than 50 years,” they White Face added,“many of these hazardous sites have been contaminating the land, air, water, and national monuments such as Mt. Rushmore and the Grand Canyon.

In addition, “each one of these thousands of abandoned uranium mines is a potential Gold King mine disaster with the greater added threat of radioactive pollution. For the sake of our health, air, land, and water, we can’t let that happen,” Charmaine said.

Though few outside of Indigenous communities know it, 75% of these abandoned mines are on federal and Tribal lands, according to the Free Thought Project.

Gardner notes that a bill known as “The Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act,” which was “introduced by Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva, has languished in Congress for two years.”

read more: http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/01/navajo-water-supply-more-horrific-than-flint-but-no-one-cares-because-theyre-native-american/#


SITTING BULL & INM @INMSittingBull
#Fracking Water Map: Where You Shouldn’t Drink Tap Water in the U.S. http://on.fb.me/1E9ivoU #FlintWaterCrisis #Diné

[KamaAina]

1. It certainly is.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027577736

[2naSalit]

2. This is a travesty and if I had the

money, I would go and lobby everyone who has anything to do with this in our government. This pisses me off so much that I can't truly express...