Congresswoman Stansbury Highlights Water Crisis in Indigenous Communities
Congresswoman Stansbury addressed the lack of safe, potable water access in Indigenous communities, including the To’Hajiilee Chapter of the Navajo Nation, during subcommittee hearing
VIDEO: Congresswoman Stansbury Highlights Water Crisis in To'Hajiilee, Indigenous Communities
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury (N.M.-01) called attention to the lack of water access in Indigenous communities during a hearing before the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife. Rep. Stansbury also advanced legislation she cosponsors to affirm the fundamental right to water access by Indigenous communities and extend authorization for river ecosystem recovery initiatives.
During the hearing, Rep. Stansbury and the subcommittee heard witness testimony from three panels on four pieces of legislation that affirms the federal government’s responsibility to ensure water access for Indigenous communities, establish a satellite-based evapotranspiration data program, extend endangered fish recovery programs and provide a conservation plan for saline lakes in the West.
“Nearly a third of households in Indigenous communities across the U.S. do not have reliable access to water and sanitation services…whose health, education, economic development, and other basic household needs are negatively impacted by this basic quality of life and human rights issue.” Rep. Stansbury said during her opening statement. “This is especially urgent in To’Hajiilee, which is a chapter of the Navajo Nation in my district in New Mexico. It is an urgent situation: an entire community does not have access to safe, drinking water. A number of the families that live in To’Hajiilee are having to haul water from Albuquerque and elsewhere.”
Rep. Stansbury asked Bidtah Becker, Associate Attorney for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and a member of the witness panel, to describe the experience of hauling water in Indigenous communities, especially To’Hajiilee.
“I think what a lot of people don't realize is that hauling water is the single most expensive form of water one can obtain and utilize, and we're already talking about families who suffer some of the highest rates of poverty in the country,” Becker responded. “One of the stories I tell is that on the weekends, when people come into the border towns to do the grocery store shopping to meet basic needs or they do their laundry, they wash their car. The lines to the bathrooms will be very long because it's the only time you have to go to a flushable bathroom and wash your hands with running water.”
“Water is a basic human right, and it's crucial to the economic well-being, the health, and just the general well-being of people in our communities,” Rep. Stansbury affirmed.
The To’Hajiilee Chapter of the Navajo Nation, located just west of Albuquerque, has been experiencing a years-long water crisis due to the failure of five of the community’s six groundwater wells. The 2,000-member community currently subsists on bottled water hauled from outside the chapter, as the sole functioning well yields corrosive water contaminated with toxic minerals.