A 2013 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report1 regarding public water supply systems nationwide noted that there were approximately 1.3 million consumers reliant on small public water supply systems in Indian Country.2 The report found that although violations had decreased at a rate of 10 percent between 2009 and 2013, 12 percent of the public water systems in use in Indian Country had health-based violations in 2013, compared to the 7 percent health-based violations reported outside of Indian Country. In 2017, the EPA estimated that tribal water systems average almost 60 percent more water quality violations than other public water supply systems.3
May 13, 2020 Feature
Native Americans Struggle to Obtain Potable Water
By Katharine H. Kinsman
In late 2019, Dig Deep and the U.S. Water Alliance published results of a study of water access by African American, Latinx, and Native American communities in the United States. While 0.3 percent of white households nationwide lack plumbing, this holds for 5.8 percent of Native American households.4 According to a National Public Radio segment of the same date, greater than 2 million Americans live without tap water or flush toilets; with 58 out of 1,000 Native American households lacking plumbing versus 3 out of 1,000 white households.5
The Navajo Nation—with tribal membership of over 332,000 and reservation land that spans approximately 27,000 square miles across Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona—is a striking example of the struggles Native Americans have obtaining safe drinking water.6 The groundwater is contaminated by over 500 abandoned uranium mines. Over 30 percent of Nation residents do not have running water and therefore are reliant on wells or other small public water supply systems for their potable water.7
The Goulding Well near Oljato in Monument Valley on the Utah/Arizona border is the main water supply for approximately 900 people, some of whom need to drive more than six miles “off road” to reach it. Most tribal members must travel (some as many as four to five hours) to collect water to haul back to their homes for use—often to numerous locations to collect a sufficient weekly supply.8 During the summer, tribal members may have to wait an hour or more to get water from their collection site(s).9 Many members living on the reservation have less than a 10-gallon supply of potable water on hand and use only 2 to 3 gallons per day in contrast to the 88 gallons of water used per day by the average U.S. consumer. Due to the low density and mountainous terrain on the large reservation, centralized water systems are a poor option.
Public health implications are great. Studies indicate that Navajo tribal members are two to four times more likely to have type 2 diabetes due in part because sugar water is much more accessible than drinking water. Contaminated groundwater, wells, springs, and soil have been identified on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and nitrate-nitrogen and coliform bacteria, which cause blood disorders, were found in the Santee Sioux Nation and the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska’s water sources. Tested wells on the Crow Reservation in Montana show contamination with bacteria that causes pulmonary disease, stomach issues, and even Legionnaires’ disease. American Indians in Arizona drinking water with high levels of inorganic arsenic may also be susceptible to type 2 diabetes.10
America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, 33 U.S.C. 2201, includes at Title II, “Drinking Water System Improvement,” § 2001, “Indian Reservation Drinking Water Program.” This section authorizes the development of 10 water systems in the Upper Missouri River Basin, which runs through Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota and impacts the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Sioux Tribes, as well as 10 water system projects in the Upper Rio Grande Basin providing water to Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, home to 23 tribes and pueblos. The act authorizes the programs to connect, repair, or expand existing water systems in the geographic areas, which are environmentally endangered, but does not appropriate the designated $20 million for each fiscal year from 2019 to 2022.11
In May 2019, a pipe burst on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon, causing a significant water infrastructure failure. The reservation’s 4,000 residents were impacted as water hydrants, sprinklers, cooling systems, restrooms, and schools were severely compromised if not totally shut down. An emergency water distribution center assisting over 900 people a day disbursed 3,000 gallons of water daily. The tribe did not have the money to repair the water system failures, and the EPA threated to fine the tribe $60,000 per day if the repairs were not completed by October 2019. The Oregon legislature then pledged $7.8 million in lottery bonds for reservation water and sewer projects, but the money won’t be payable until 2021. As of mid-November 2019, problems persisted with the water system servicing the largest reservation in Oregon.12
In response to this crisis, Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley introduced an amendment to § 2001 of the 2018 act entitled “The Western Tribal Water Infrastructure Act of 2019.”13 The amendment adds 10 water system projects in a segment of the Columbia River Basin. Tribes located in geographic areas incorporated in the amendment include the Chinook Indian Nation, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Yakama Nation, the Wanapum, and the Nez Perce Tribe. The amendment also increases the amount allotted to $30 million per fiscal year starting in 2020 (with no ending date) and also appropriates the money. The amendment was referred to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs at the end of 2019.
Although the amendment to the 2018 act is commendable, the $30 million per year appropriated is clearly insufficient to cover the scope of the potable water problem experienced by the multiple tribes in the Columbia River Basin, the Upper Missouri River Basin, and the Upper Rio Grande Basin. As a point of reference, the Indian Health Service estimates that it would cost more than $200 million,14 or greater than $70,000 per home,15 to provide basic water and sanitation to the Navajo Nation.16
According to the 2013 EPA report cited above, the allotment in the EPA 2013 National Public Water Supply System Program for Indian Country was only $6.5 million. Additionally, only 2 percent, or $17.2 million, of the National Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is set aside for American Indian Communities and Alaska Native Villages. An October 2016 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Natural Resources noted that Native American tribes consistently receive the lowest funding per dollar of need out of any U.S. jurisdiction: “For example, in Fiscal Year 2012, tribes received $0.75 per every $100 of need under the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.”17
The 2019 amendment and its predecessor do not address the significant potable water access issues facing Indian Country nationwide. Not only must significantly more money from both the federal and state governments be appropriated to address this public health and basic human right issue, but more comprehensive updates are required to federal water law. The last update to the drinking water standard in the Safe Drinking Water Act was issued in 1996—24 years ago.18 Finally, a more comprehensive approach to water system issues in Indian Country nationwide needs to be developed proactively instead of ad hoc legislation reactive to individual water crisis.
Endnotes
1. Providing Safe Drinking Water in America: 2013 National Public Water Systems Compliance Report, United States Environmental Protection Agency.
2. The report did not include data from Native American Villages in Alaska or 18 public water supply systems used by tribes in Oklahoma.
3. Lauren Kaljur & Macee Behler, Native American Tribes Fight for Clean Water and More Money, News21 (Aug. 14, 2017).
4. Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States: A National Action Plan, Dig Deep and the U.S. Water Alliance (Nov. 18, 2019).
5. Native Americans Are Group Most Likely Not to Have Running Water at Home, National Public Radio, Ayana Byrd (Nov. 18, 2019).
6. Closing the Water Access Gap, supra note 4.
7. 2 Million Americans Lack Clean Water Access, Especially Native Americans, National Public Radio, Jordan Davidson (Nov. 28, 2019).
8. Id.
9. Water Hole: No Running Water on Navajo Nation Reservation, Indian Country Today (June 6, 2017).
10. Water Delayed Is Water Denied: How Congress has Blocked Access to Water for Native Families, House Committee on Natural Resources, Democratic Staff (Oct. 10, 2016).
11. Pub. L. No. 115-270, 132 Stat. 3765, 115th Congress (Oct. 28, 2018).
12. Water for Warm Springs, Eugene Weekly, Kayla Godowa-Tufti (Nov. 21, 2019).
13. S. 3044, 116th Congress (Dec. 12, 2019).
14. Id.
15. Id.
16. Id. and Water Hole, supra note 9.
17. Water Delayed Is Water Denied, supra note 10.
18. Erik D. Olson & Mae Wu, New Water Infrastructure Bill: A Positive Step, Natural Resources Defense Council (Oct. 10, 2018).