Navajos desperate for water

TONALEA, Ariz. — Ethel Whitehair ran out of water again over the weekend, emptied every bucket and pot, drained the barrels lined up outside her front door. The community well was closed until Monday. So Whitehair waited, as she had so often during her 87 years on Arizona's Navajo Reservation. She waited for her children to come and haul water from the good well. She waited for someone to end an unthinkable water crisis.

It is a wait shared by nearly 80,000 others on the reservation who must haul water to meet basic needs. They live far from a water pipeline, and their communities barely have enough water to sustain what few lines exist.

The Navajos' water crisis has persisted so long it has wormed its way into the routines of life on the nation's largest Indian reservation. Easing the crisis will require decades of work, billions of dollars and the patience to cut through the politics of Western water.

"When we get up in the morning, after we pray, we have to start thinking about how much water we have," said Lena Fowler, vice chairman of the Navajo Nation Water Rights Commission.

Little comes easy for the 200,000 people who live on the Navajo Reservation, which surrounds three of the four corners in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Homes and communities lie scattered across an area the size of West Virginia.

Per capita income is about $7,000 a year, compared with about $21,000 elsewhere in Arizona. More than 40 percent of the people live below the poverty line, about the same proportion that lacks running water.

Tribal officials say they can't ignore the link between poverty and lack of water. Without reliable water systems, businesses can't survive. New housing must wait.

So people haul water, as many as 80 percent of people in some communities. It is a task that cuts deeply into meager incomes, especially as gasoline prices climb. The Bureau of Reclamation estimated in a 2004 study that the total economic cost to haul water on the reservation is about $113 per 1,000 gallons. In comparison, a Phoenix homeowner pays about $5 a month for as much as 7,480 gallons. It's not uncommon for people to drive 30 miles or more, one way. During the summer, livestock can require daily trips on long stretches of dirt roads.

With resources stretched so thin, the Navajos have adapted into some of the most efficient water users anywhere.

In a day, an average Navajo uses as little as 10 to 15 gallons of water in a water-hauling home, closer to 80 gallons in a home with running water. In Phoenix, the average person uses as much as 170 gallons per day.