Contaminated Water in Black Falls Affects Navajo Residents

By Kathy Helms, Gallup Independent

WINDOW ROCK – For some elderly Black Falls, Ariz., residents, last week’s Navajo Environmental Protection Agency conference was their first opportunity to have a voice in Window Rock – a chance some didn’t want to miss.

The community located in the former Bennett Freeze area has struggled for years to find a source of safe drinking water, with residents often traveling 50 miles to Flagstaff on unpaved roads to haul water.

In February, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Indian Health Service extended a waterline and constructed a safe water-hauling point in the priority area to serve residents near four unregulated wells contaminated with uranium.

Indian Health Service distributed 14 new water-hauling tanks to members of the community and is developing plans to install cisterns for up to nine homes within the immediate vicinity of the contaminated wells. In the interim, EPA has been providing bottled water to two families living in a very remote area who previously relied on uranium-contaminated wells.

During the May 13 EPA conference presentation of “Assisting the Water Haulers: Using Grassroots Driven Development to Secure Environmental Justice,” Don Yellowman, president of The Forgotten People, talked about how this group of Bennett Freeze area residents came together to help themselves.

“In Diné way, these people have extended families here and cannot just pick up and move to some other location so they remain and when necessary subject themselves to drinking contaminated water,” Yellowman said.

“I can only imagine how Rolanda (Tohannie) must feel speaking publicly about how she knows she is drinking contaminated water but does so because she has no other choice, and how Elsie Tohannie and other Black Falls residents feel as mothers, grandmothers and relatives of these families.

“It is imperative the new Black Falls Church watering point open, be maintained, and in the interim, all chapter houses must serve everyone in need without discrimination to ensure access to safe drinking water,” he said.

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Source:  Gallup Independent