As we’re sipping our cup of coffee before heading into the shower, remember a couple of numbers. Seventy thousand. Twenty-six minutes. 

These numbers, hopefully, will spur us into action. 

Late last year, New Mexico PBS station KNME produced Waterhaulers,  a documentary about  the 70,000 residents of the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners region who have been waiting decades for the most basic modern service.  Running water.  Clean, safe water to drink, use  for cooking, bath their children. 

Seventy thousand American citizens living on ancestral lands denied access because of erstwhile “rights” about who  “owns” the water that’s been running beneath their feet for thousands of years.  It sounds incredulous, but like many seemingly unbelievable things in life, it’s totally true. 

Which is why you should take 26 minutes to do something. See for yourself.  

To their credit, KNME is streaming the entire documentary online.  Waterhaulers  producer Tish Bravo adeptly relays the hardship reservation families endure without succumbing to adding flutes and drums and pathos. The documentary also focuses on the reasons behind it all—the decades long governmental wrangling over access to the coveted San Juan River basin. The politics, the neglect, and, obviously, the de facto racism that has desperate folks climbing down canyons and setting out buckets to capture contaminated rain water. 

Making the situation even more complicated, the documentary explains how ceding all San Juan River rights to the Navajo Nation would have a disastrous impact on the millions of residents of cities like Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Past sins with contemporary consequences; with the Navajo on the losing end.   

Unlike most other true-life films that upset, outrage or incense, however, Waterhaulers offers something else.  A solution.  And something we can do to be a part of it. 

In 2005, the state of New Mexico signed into law the San Juan River Basin-Navajo Nation Water Rights Settlement Agreement. Without going into specifics, the agreement is intended to provide water rights and development projects to benefit the Navajo people while preserving the access to non-reservation New Mexicans.  

All good, right?  Ummmm, maybe.  

The cost of building an infrastructure to bring water covering an area larger than the state of Connecticut—well, it ain’t cheap.  $800 million dollars, to be precise. That kind of chump change falls into the hands of our U.S. Congress to appropriate. 

This is the year it could happen. This is the year that Congress could give the “yay” or “nay” to the Navajo Pipeline which would bring modern plumbing access to the folks who’ve been climbing down the canyons and drinking contaminated rain water for generations.  

Seventy thousand. Twenty-six minutes.  

In 26 minutes, you will learn why and what and how you can do something about getting water to the 70,000 members of the Navajo Nation. You can write to the political leaders who can make this happen.  The KNME site provides the phone numbers and emails for the representatives, senators and state officials whose stroke of the pen will make the Agreement become a reality. 

Seventy thousand kids, moms, dads, elders and young people. They deserve to sip on their coffee before heading into the shower. Just like you and me. 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    

Watch it all…
WATERHAULERS DOCUMENTARY & WEBSITE 
…then do something