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- [00:02]
T-Mobile Representative
After investing billions to light up our network, T Mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus right now you can switch keep your phone and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan versus Verizon and AT&T. @t mobile.com Keep and switch up to.
- [00:20]
Four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlocked device credit service ported 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.
- [00:30]
Katie Maloney
Hi, I'm Katie Maloney.
- [00:32]
Dana Caethan
And I'm Dana Caethan and we are the Disrespectfully Podcast. Recently we've been super excited to see a surge in new listeners. We love doing the show. We love our listeners and are super excited about it. So we invite you.
- [00:44]
Katie Maloney
Yeah, we invite you into the covenant for our unhinged topics. We have a really good time.
- [00:50]
Dana Caethan
Our stream of consciousness.
- [00:51]
Katie Maloney
Our stream of consciousness. You know, we're giving advice, we're listening to and reading all your stories that you send in about your unhinged behavior as well.
- [00:59]
Dana Caethan
If you want to sit down with your friends and just chit chat about what's going on in your world and laugh, maybe cry, maybe evaluate your life choices, this is the podcast for you.
- [01:07]
Katie Maloney
This is definitely the podcast for you.
- [01:09]
Dana Caethan
Check it out.
- [01:14]
Charlie Edcity
I'm driving on the very edge of the Navajo Nation reservation in Arizona. I40 runs all the way along the southern boundary right through the town of Winslow. The one thing that people know about Winslow is the band the Eagles. They have a line in one of their songs where he says, I'm standing.
- [01:36]
Cascade Natural Gas Representative
On a corner in Winslow, Arizona.
- [01:39]
Andrew Curley
It's such a fine sight to see.
- [01:47]
Charlie Edcity
For the people who live out here and me. We know Winslow as a border town, even though it's not between countries or even between states. And for many heading onto the reservation, it's the last stop before home. I'm Charlie. I'm a proud citizen of the Navajo Nation. Or Dine. That's what we call ourselves. In our language it translates to the people is what we call our Homelandie Dashinele. This is my traditional introduction, how all Dene peoples situate themselves to one another and we list our clans. I am of the Yucca Fruit Clan, born for the near the Water Clan. My maternal grandfather is Red House Clan and my paternal grandfather is Towering House Clan. My mom grew up a few hours north of Winslow, right near the Four Corners in a place called is Nas Paz, Arizona. She raised me near Phoenix, but I used to spend every summer on the res with my grandparents, helping them take care of the sheep. I live in Houston now, where I'm a journalist at ktrk, and that makes every journey back here even more special, because coming back to the reservation feels like just taking a deep breath and letting it go. About 20 miles outside of Winslow, I cross the invisible line of the reservation boundary, and something incredible happens. The sky darkens. Big droplets start to fall from the clouds. You know, it's our belief that there is a male and female to all things, that everything is in balance. Instead of a gentle female rain, it quickly becomes a downpour, which we call male rain. Both kinds are sacred. For the next five minutes or so, I can smell the rain and the dirt. I can smell all the desert plants, greasewood and sagebrush. The Navajo call this nilsa hal chin. I'm getting some good rain right now. It was great. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen it rain here. Like, really rain. This is dry country. If you're not used to it, you can get nosebleeds and chapped lips. After spending just a day or two here, these drops are sacred. Most of them will eventually find their way into the Colorado river and its tributaries, which surround the reservation. But the water may never find its way to the people here. This lack of access to water has been devastating to the Navajo people. But it didn't have to be this way. That's why I'm back here on the reservation. To answer the question, how did the people who were here first end up last in line for water in the driest part of the United States? In this season of reclaimed, I'm going to tell you how the largest indigenous group in the country has been denied the most basic of resources and how now they're demanding their water back, and they're this close to getting it. This is reclaimed. The lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Episode 1 Dry Country I think I see the statue up on the. I think that's it up on the hill. As the rain clears, I see a large iron statue in the shape of a horse. The person I'm visiting, Kyle Lewis, told me to look out for this. You can't miss it, he said. I turn onto a bumpy dirt road and head for the nearest house. The house is one of a few in a cluster on a wide open patch of land that's surrounded by mesas. There are cows in a corral between the buildings and more that are roaming freely nearby. Honestly, even though I found the horse statue, it's hard to know if we're even in the right place. There's no street signs or house numbers. When I see an older man in a pickup truck, I ask if he knows Kyle Lewis, and he acts like he's never heard of him. But then Kyle appears.
- [06:53]
Katie Maloney
Hi.
- [06:54]
Kyle Lewis
Hello.
- [06:55]
Charlie Edcity
Nice to meet you.
- [06:56]
Andrew Curley
This is Mr. Lu.
- [07:00]
Kyle Lewis
Yeah, got it. That's my Nolly Leroy.
- [07:06]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle had been waiting for me in a different spot, but Kyle's Nolly man, or grandfather Leroy, is who I happen to run into first.
- [07:17]
Kyle Lewis
Just turn around. We'll go right here in a loop and then we'll go over off to my uncle's place first. He wants to talk to you.
- [07:23]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle is around 40. He's only recently moved back to his family's community, which is called Standing Horse, hence the statue. As we head to his uncle's place, he points out everyone else's houses. There's his paternal grandparents, his aunts and Leroy. Of course, they're all family here, and anyone who isn't is still called family. The houses are small single story homes. There are trailers and sheds and a few old vehicles scattered around. But then I see them. The big tanks. Each house has one. They're about 6ft long and 4ft wide, and each holds hundreds of gallons of water. These tanks are essential to surviving here. They provide each house with water for cooking, cleaning, showering, or flushing the toilet. And the thing is, every drop in those tanks has to be brought in. That means strapping a container to a pickup truck and then driving to the nearest water source, which for Kyle's family is around 30 minutes away. But other people travel more much further. If you're lucky. It's a regulated source with clean water. But many are forced to rely on unregulated wells, which often are contaminated. At least a third of the Navajo Nation doesn't have guaranteed access to clean water. That's tens of thousands of people, and Kyle is one of them. He makes the journey to the communal water pump every day, more than once a day in the hot summer months, just to keep those tanks filled.
- [09:10]
Kyle Lewis
Sometimes if it's really bad, if we haven't seen rain and none of our earth dams have filled up and our windmills dried up, we usually have to do two to three times a day.
- [09:21]
Charlie Edcity
The Navajo reservation stretches from northwestern New Mexico to the Grand Canyon. From Flagstaff, Arizona, all the way up to the Utah border. Standing Horse is on the reservation near its southern edge. Kyle's parents actually raised him off the res about an hour and a half away down near flagstaff. He would still go to the ranch every weekend to help with the cattle. When he was younger, it's where he considered home. But when he was a teenager, something took him away from it all.
- [09:54]
Kyle Lewis
It was 9, 11. I was a senior in high school, and understanding what just happened, that I needed to do something for my country. I just turned 17, and I decided to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. 2001 is when I enlisted, and I joined the Marine Corps in 2002. When I graduated high school and do my four years and get out, that was my plan.
- [10:17]
Charlie Edcity
He did three tours in Iraq and came back to the US where he was stationed in California. But then he saw all his buddies reenlisting.
- [10:27]
Kyle Lewis
All right, cool. I'll reenlist too.
- [10:29]
Charlie Edcity
The war in Afghanistan was just getting started, so Kyle ended up being deployed there. Being in the marines made him think differently about his life on the reservation. At one point, each of the marines was asked to do a presentation to tell a story about themselves and their lives back home. Kyle talked about standing horse, about how there was no water and how they had to haul everything they needed just to survive there. His fellow marines had no idea.
- [11:00]
Kyle Lewis
Like, y'all still don't have water? I'm like, no, we don't. We haul water still. Like, man, it's messed up. Yeah, it is. It really is.
- [11:08]
Charlie Edcity
In some of the places Kyle was stationed in the middle east and Africa, he came to a realization that people lived pretty much the same way there as he did. A standing horse, they raise livestock and hauled water. On his last deployment, Kyle was stationed in Germany. By then, he'd spent two decades in the military and had three kids. All of them were getting used to life there. Kyle considered staying permanently, But a death in the family changed his mind.
- [11:42]
Kyle Lewis
My father passed away two years ago, But I just kind of knew that it was time for me to come home. But I was just living the life. Traveling, you know, deploying, having a good time, being a marine. And I just kind of didn't realize that people were living their lives, too back home. Until I came home from my father's funeral and just realized, like, man, everybody's getting older. I need to come home.
- [12:04]
Charlie Edcity
The elders he'd grown up helping haul water Were still doing it, but now they were in their 70s and 80s. Kyle officially retired from the army and settled down to help haul water and take care of livestock full time. A prodigal son. Returning is a big deal for Kyle's family. So many people leave the reservation and don't return, One person who was really glad to see Kyle was his uncle Tommy Lewis.
- [12:32]
Kyle Lewis
Have a seat.
- [12:33]
Charlie Edcity
Thank you.
- [12:35]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
So you guys know where you're at.
- [12:38]
Charlie Edcity
Standing horse. Like kyle, uncle tommy is also retired. He was the president of a college in the pacific northwest. But like a lot of navajo people, he always felt the call of home. Kyle told me that when Tommy was a child, all the other kids went running outside to play. But Tommy, he stayed in with the elders, absorbing all the family stories. Now, Tommy is an elder himself, but he still makes the journey to get water.
- [13:13]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
So tomorrow, I'll probably have to haul water to Winslow. I'm 70 years old now. I had a lot of energy way back when. I haul water Friday at the end of the day, you know, I was tired.
- [13:27]
Charlie Edcity
The water the family hauls for the livestock and the household are from the same source, which Tommy says is not always safe to use.
- [13:36]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
One day, my wife was making dinner. She was boiling some water. And all of a sudden she began to notice some kind of white stuff right on the surface of that boiling water. She turned it and said, what the heck is this? It came out of the water faucet. This is the water that we hauled from winslow. Some kind of chemical would float it right on top. This is dangerous. I can't cook with this meal with food. We can use it for washing.
- [14:09]
Charlie Edcity
Sometimes the pump water comes out brown like tea. And if they need water for drinking, they have to buy it bottled. Back when uncle Tommy was a kid, the family didn't use the public water pumps. They relied on groundwater in the area.
- [14:26]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
So there's a water well about maybe three miles east of here called torte Congenital. And I had an uncle. His name was billy. Yellow hair. He had a wagon.
- [14:39]
Charlie Edcity
Tommy remembers his uncle standing in a horse drawn wagon waiting for him. Tommy would hop in, his uncle would whip the horses, and off they would go to the well, where there was no pump system. Everything had to be done by hand.
- [14:54]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
So we had a five gallon bucket. You put a rope on it, you dip it in there. Boy, it was tough Bringing it up 1, 1, 1 bucket full at a time. There's a barrel here. You fill it up 10 times.
- [15:12]
Charlie Edcity
Would fill up a barrel over and over again. Tommy would fill the bucket to fill the barrel. They would then load it into the back of the wagon and haul it three miles home.
- [15:25]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
The problem with the water was real salty. When we brought it home, boy, we just had to close our eyes and take a deep breath and swallow it. There's no other water. And grandma Used to make coffee with that salt water. Boy. It was the most awful thing. But we had no choice.
- [15:46]
Charlie Edcity
Tommy and Kyle's family live on the reservation, but they're just four miles from the boundary line. And those four miles make all the difference between having water and not. The reason for this disparity begins with decisions made, in some cases, over 150 years ago. To understand those decisions, we have to go back to the era of western expansion, of Manifest Destiny. That's the idea that white settlers were preordained to rule over the western part of North America. When I was a kid, I remember hearing stories about this time. It was something all of us, me, my sister, my cousins, learn through family stories, not in history books. To a lot of people, the names I'm about to talk about are obscure. They're footnotes in U.S. history. But to us, they were men responsible for years of torment and misery. The first name, Brigadier General James H. Carleton. Back in the mid-1800s, Carleton was put in charge of the federal government's relationship with indigenous people in the western territories. Some historians say Carleton was angry, Angry that he had been passed over for a position in the Union army when they were fighting the Confederates in the east. So he decided to make a war of his own in the west. He provoked the tribes by attacking them one by one. When they retaliated, he used their violence as evidence. He said they had to be tamed once and for all, and that included the Navajo. He sent a deputy to round up the tribe. That's the second name I want you to remember. Kit Carson. For some, Carson is viewed as an American hero. But for Danette, he became the face of a very dark time, time in our history. Carson and Carleton's mission was to force the Navajo to surrender, to leave their ancestral homelands and travel to Fort Sumner in present day New Mexico. There, they would be allocated new lands and a new way of life. Many Navajo hid from Carson and his soldiers and retreated further into the canyons. So Carson tried to make it impossible for them to stay. He burned their homes and crops, destroyed their irrigation systems, and even poisoned their water. He starved them out of their own lands. All of this led to what we call the Long Walk. Tommy says his and Kyle's relatives were part of the group that was forced from their home and marched east towards New Mexico.
- [18:40]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
Our great grandma, the one that used to live here, her mom was one of those that got driven somewhere way out there. Probably Pascal by Grant's great great grandma just got tired.
- [18:56]
Charlie Edcity
As the story goes, Tommy's great grandma starts lagging behind the group. A soldier riding a horse takes pity on her. This young, tired girl, he says, climb up here with me for a while. So she does, and they ride along for a bit until the soldier takes a break under a juniper tree. And according to the family lore, he takes a branch from the tree and shaves it down to a point.
- [19:23]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
Then he started cleaning his earwax.
- [19:27]
Charlie Edcity
So the soldier sitting there, branch in his ear, all the while, great grandma is still on the back of the horse, thinking, what does this mean?
- [19:38]
Uncle Tommy Lewis
Can I survive? So just instantly, she got this energy. The sharp end was pointed toward his ear, and she went around and hit that stick with her palm.
- [19:54]
Charlie Edcity
She kills the soldier in the first ear cleaning murder I've ever heard of. She takes the reins and quietly, so as not to alert the other soldiers, turns the horse around and heads back the way she came. This one moment changed the course of the family's history. If Tommy's great grandmother had continued on the long Walk, the family tree could have ended with her. According to the National Institutes of health, an estimated 8,500 Navajo were marched by US soldiers to Fort Sumner, some traveling hundreds of miles. Many who were too old or too sick, even too young, were killed or died on the way. The Navajo who made it to eastern New Mexico were put into an internment camp called Basque Redondo. There, the tribes were told to renounce their traditional ways of life and assimilate into white settler lifestyles. They were prohibited from performing their traditional songs, stories, and ceremonies. Many tried to escape. For those that couldn't, life was extremely difficult. Rations that were promised never materialized, and the first year's harvest was decimated by pests. After surviving the Long Walk, thousands would die at Bosque Redondo of malnutrition and disease, of being forced to live in horrific conditions, of having their spirits weakened. We call this genocide cuel de the Long Walk. And the internment at Bosque Redondo was a disaster. After five long years, the federal government realized it too. But the government's next step would lock the Navajo into a bad deal, one the tribe is still unraveling today.
- [21:57]
T-Mobile Representative
After investing billions to light up our network. T Mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus right now you can switch keep your phone and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan vs Verizon and at&t@t mobile.com Keep.
- [22:13]
And switch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service ported 90 plus states with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption Required card has no cash access and expires in six months.
- [22:26]
Cascade Natural Gas Representative
Cascade Natural Gas believes a warm home, hot water and natural gas energy should be available to everyone. That's why Cascade established the Oregon Low Income Bill Assistance and Energy Discount Programs. These programs provide income qualified applicants a discount on their monthly bill and if needed, help with past due balances. Qualifying for A assistance is easy by calling Cascade or any of our partner community action agencies. Get complete bill assistance info@cngc.com help In.
- [22:58]
Charlie Edcity
1868, five years since the Long Walk began, the US government sent officers to take over command of Bosque Redondo and make a plan for the remaining prisoners. Finally, the Navajo had the opportunity to negotiate for their freedom.
- [23:16]
Andrew Curley
Dine is like how we call ourselves in our own language. Navajo is a word that was ascribed to us back in, I think as early as the 16th century by the Spanish.
- [23:28]
Charlie Edcity
Andrew Curley is a professor at the University of Arizona, but he talks more like a student activist. He studied the relationship between colonial powers and indigenous communities, including his own.
- [23:41]
Andrew Curley
So when the US government signed a treaty with our ancestors in 1868, they said, this is a treaty between the United States of America and the Navajo Band of Indians.
- [23:54]
Charlie Edcity
Andrew says that the Navajo people or Dene people were not coming into the negotiations with a very strong position. They had been to hell and back. Now they were presented with their options by the government of their imprisoners. Ultimately, they were given two options, turn around and march back to where you came from or go somewhere else.
- [24:18]
Andrew Curley
Originally they wanted to move us to Oklahoma into Indian Territory, and our leadership at that time said, no, we don't want to move there. You know, we want to go back to where we're from and this is important for our identity, this place.
- [24:34]
Charlie Edcity
The federal representatives were persuaded, and the tribe was assigned to a small square of land on the Arizona, New Mexico border. It was important for the Navajo to return to their ancestral lands, and not all tribes would be able to. Twenty years earlier, tribes from the eastern United States were forced on their own genocidal march the Trail of Tears, and never got to go home. For the Navajo to return to their homeland, they had to sign the treaty. It drew the boundaries of the land right down to the longitude and latitude terms that would have been complex and foreign to the Navajo signers at the time because they were all Western concepts written in English.
- [25:19]
Andrew Curley
That land that was set aside in 1868 was much smaller than previous Navajo land claims.
- [25:27]
Charlie Edcity
The treaty Called the land a, quote, permanent home that is designed to induce Indians leading a nomadic life or engaged in war to stop, to settle peacefully. The Navajo signed. It bound the Navajo to a life of farming and schools that would Anglicize their children. But it was the only deal on the table unless they wanted to be sent to Oklahoma. The Navajo returned to a sliver of their former lands, which were now called a reservation.
- [25:58]
Andrew Curley
A reservation is a land status. These are places where Native nations can exercise social life to a degree that the United States allows. It's very controlled. The laws are very constricting, and the land status technically is owned by the federal government.
- [26:20]
Charlie Edcity
The one thing the treaty did not cover. Water. The government promised the Navajo Nation a permanent homeland, but it had made no promises about a key building block of actually living there. The government's refusal to help secure their access to water. It's that that restricted the future of a tribe trying to thrive in the Southwest. By the time the Navajo returned to their homeland, it had a very different feeling than how they had left it. And around them, things were changing. As wagons and trains carried new settlers to the western states. While the Navajo tried to adapt to the new rules and boundaries from their federal landlords, new cities were springing up across the west, from Phoenix to Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. And soon the Navajo would discover just how far these new settlers would go to ensure their own success. When you think of California in the middle of the 19th century, you might think of the Gold rush, but it should actually be called the Water Rush. Because as prospectors raced from the eastern US to pan the living daylights out of the land, they realized that without water, gold was pretty hard to find. They gouged mountains and destroyed ecosystems to move water around. It was chaos. California had to do something. So they came up with a way to regulate the use of water in the new state. A water law. The law they set up was not simple. It still shapes the lives of people in the western US Today. But most people don't understand it. And honestly, I didn't until I started working on this series. Here's the thing you really need to know. In the eastern states, water was treated like a public good. But in the west, the water law they developed was more like finders keepers or first come, first served. If you arrived in California with a dream of, say, starting a farm, you were given priority to the water source. If you found it first, anyone who came after you, well, they just got your leftovers. And in a dry year, maybe there wasn't Any water left. That kind of priority can make or break you. The law also let New Californians move the water. If the best place for your new farm wasn't right next to a river, you could still claim the water you needed, even if that meant diverting the river's course. All of these rules were meant to cultivate economic success. California wanted to make sure that settlers could thrive if they got in early enough. It was clear right from the beginning, you can't get rich without land, and you can't succeed on that land without water. Other states knew it too, and soon followed California's lead, creating water laws that mirrored the same principles. Get in early, secure your water, and get rich. But these western states now had a problem. Each other.
- [29:34]
Andrew Curley
Colorado is a State in 1870s. Arizona and New Mexico are like competing with each other to become a state. They both become states in 1912. It's kind of leading to this anxiety that everybody else is going to divert and consume all of the waters of the Colorado River.
- [29:52]
Charlie Edcity
The Colorado river begins in the Rocky Mountains and ends all the way down in the Gulf of California. The river basin is huge. It covers seven states. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California. It also includes a part of Mexico. California was an older, more established state than the others on the river's course, and it had a big population. So because the water law favored early arrival and rapid development, California was poised to stake a huge claim on the Colorado River's waters. The states further upstream were nervous. They feared that all the water would be claimed by California long before their economies would even have a chance to grow. They would be forced to watch the river go right by them, bringing economic success to California, all because of this system of first dibs. So all seven basin states came up with a solution. They agreed that they would split the river up so that no single state could claim all the water for themselves. They created, created their own agreement known as the Colorado River Compact.
- [31:07]
Andrew Curley
The compact is negotiated in 1922 in a place called Bishop's Lodge, north of Santa Fe. A very bougie place, very much reflecting the class of people who were negotiating it.
- [31:22]
Charlie Edcity
This negotiation created more conceptual lines on the map, more boundaries and shapes hashed out in a meeting room.
- [31:30]
Andrew Curley
There's this point in the river that's historically a landing spot. It's up in the canyon region of the river, a place called Lees Ferry. So we'll just. We'll just divide the river here in half. We'll call this everything south of here, lower basin, everything north of here. Upper basin.
- [31:46]
Charlie Edcity
Lees Ferry is in Arizona on the western Navajo Reservation boundary line. The compact signers have an estimate of just how much water flows down the river. 18 million acre feet. An acre feet, by the way, is just a way to measure huge quantities of water. One acre foot is 326,000 gallons, or enough to cover a football field with a foot of water. So they say, okay, everything north of lees Ferry gets 7.5 million acre feet, and everything below gets 7.5 million acre feet too. That leaves about 3 million acre feet, a little buffer, because that's just good planning.
- [32:30]
Andrew Curley
And what do we do with tribes? That becomes a question and they're like, well, we'll put an Indian clause in here which says nothing. Actually, it really doesn't tell you much. It says nothing in this agreement will prevent the federal government from fulfilling its treaty obligations to tribes.
- [32:49]
Charlie Edcity
Because looking after the tribes was the federal government's job. The individual states in the compact washed their hands of the whole Indian question. There was one other important flaw in the compact language. The 18 million acre feet they thought was coming down the river was off, very off. It was actually closer to 14.8 million. So that 3 million acre feet buffer wasn't there. The river was over allocated right from the beginning. And it's only gotten worse since. To this day, the Navajo Nation has no guaranteed share of any water from the main part of the Colorado river, even though it borders the northwest edge of the reservation. What this means is the tribe has been stuck in the past. So as the western states like Arizona and New Mexico grew, they could create water infrastructure for their citizens. They built pipelines to bring water into dry parts of the state. They built sewer systems and plumbing for individual homes, water treatment plants to provide their citizens with clean water. Huge infrastructure projects backed by the federal government helped their economies grow and their populations did too. So they could build more infrastructure, more houses, more pipes, more water brought directly to the faucet. For a third of the Navajo Nation, these crucial parts of everyday life are missing. Tens of thousands of people still use outhouses. They boil water on the stove just to bathe. Without rights to the river, they are forced to rely on scarce streams and groundwater on the reservation for all their needs. These sources are particularly vulnerable to drought. So sometimes there simply isn't water there, even if you have a pipeline to carry it. These essential things that the rest of the country takes for granted are missing here. And for those most vulnerable, it doesn't take much for the lack of infrastructure to turn deadly.
- [35:07]
T-Mobile Representative
Now, at T Mobile get four 5G phones on us and four lines for $25 a line per month when you switch with eligible trade ins all on America's largest 5G network.
- [35:19]
Minimum of 4 lines for $25 per line per month with auto pay discount using debit or bank account, $5 more per line without autopay plus taxes and fees and $10 device connection charge phones via 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified custom. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on a required finance agreement. Due bill credits end if you pay off devices early.
- [35:35]
Cascade Natural Gas Representative
CT mobile.com cascade Natural gas believes a warm home, hot water and natural gas energy should be available to everyone. That's why Cascade established the Oregon Low Income Bill Assistance and Energy Discount Programs. These programs provide income qualified applicants a discount on their monthly bill and if needed, help with passing due balances. Qualifying for assistance is easy by calling Cascade or any of our partner community action agencies. Get complete bill assistance info@cngc.com help COVID.
- [36:08]
Charlie Edcity
19 has ravaged the Navajo Nation.
- [36:12]
T-Mobile Representative
Native American territory now have the highest per capita rate of infection in the.
- [36:16]
Charlie Edcity
Country, over 700 deaths since March, with 77 communities facing uncontrolled spread. As the COVID 19 virus spread across the country in 2020, it hit the Navajo Nation disproportionately hard. It was such a scary time to be away from my family. My grandmother was 95 years old at the time and we were terrified that she would get it. I just remember being so stunned at how quickly it was spreading in the community. While everyone was being advised to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds, there was a growing awareness about the people who couldn't do that. It was a wake up call about water. Many community wells on the reservation were suddenly closed, forcing people to travel farther and spend more time outside of their home during a pandemic just to get water. And some people turned to unregulated wells instead. According to one study, the use of contaminated wells actually increased Navajo susceptibility to COVID infection. I remember watching all of the media coverage. A part of me was very thankful that there was an outpouring of support, even donations of water to those who needed it. But another part of me was angry. It took a pandemic and deaths for people to finally pay attention to what was happening in our community. And as soon as the pandemic was over, everyone left. It felt like no one wanted to figure out why there was no running water. That was incredibly disappointing. Many of the people who Died from COVID Were the vulnerable the elders in the community. This was an especially profound loss because they're often the keepers of the oral histories of the family. Kyle is surrounded by his elders here at standing horse, and he's working on plans to make their lives a little easier in the future. What he wants to do is capture the rain from those rare, beautiful days like the day I visited. By installing earth dams to bank up all the water. His livestock could drink it, and there would be fewer hauling trips for the whole family.
- [38:33]
Kyle Lewis
That's my goal probably here in the next two, three years, to get to that point down the hill. So we'll see.
- [38:41]
Charlie Edcity
So basically, the solution would have to be created by you, not the tribe, the federal government. It's all on you.
- [38:48]
Kyle Lewis
We don't rely on the federal government or the tribe. And that's what makes, I think, the standing horse culture. We just kind of take care of ourselves out here and help each other out and do what we got to do to survive Is our thing forward. But, no, we don't depend on or rely on them. You drive around the reservation, you, see a lot of abandoned houses. And I thought about it when I came back was, you look around here like, you're not going to see a lot of young people 15, 20 years from now. Like, what is this land gonna look like? Who's gonna be living here? Who's gonna be gone? Are these gonna be abandoned houses like our old house over there? You know, that's something that I didn't want because my childhood was great, that I don't remember a lot of the bad. I remember all the fun times I had here. And that's kind of what I wanna pass on to my kids.
- [39:50]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle works from morning until night. There's always something to do. Repairing a fence, checking on a stray cow, and, of course, the relentless water trips. He knows it's not an appealing offer for future generations. The treaty calls the reservation a permanent homeland. But if everyone leaves, what is it then? An empty house like the ones Kyle sees by the side of the road. Okay, great. There's one last chore Kyle has to do today. He has to fill up the tanks.
- [40:30]
Kyle Lewis
We're going off to the winslow water treatment plant, about 30 miles away from here.
- [40:37]
Charlie Edcity
We're heading back down the road that we came up on Back to the border town of winslow. When his kids are here, they are the ones usually in the front of the truck. Is the eventual hope that maybe one day they'll be living out here, maybe raising cattle and helping out the family?
- [40:58]
Kyle Lewis
Yeah, I think so. My oldest understands that and he's accepted it and that's what he wants to do in life at 12 years, at 11 years old. But I told him, like, you know, you need the experience and figure out what you're going to do. Don't. I don't. I'm not telling you to come out out here, but this is always will be home for you. And I'll maintain it for as long as I can until we're ready to move on. But that is the goal. I think that is the dream. I think that has always been the dream for all my family out here was to carry this on, to make sure that our family was taken care of.
- [41:46]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle's oldest, Aiden, never really had a hobby, but being in standing horse, Kyle watched him find his passion. Whether that means he'll stay to carry on the family tradition, that's another story.
- [41:59]
Kyle Lewis
And my job is to not make my kids want to come back. My job is to want them to come back on their own, to feel a part of it, to be proud of it and to want to carry it on. And if they don't, you know, that's my fault because I didn't teach them enough because I didn't have the pride that I have now.
- [42:19]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle drives the 30 minutes to Winslow and then weaves his way through the back roads until we reach the water treatment plant. And it kind of looks like a gas pump with a thick hose that dangles six feet from the ground.
- [42:35]
Kyle Lewis
Line it up and then this is where you will all play a role in holding the hose while I turn it on. This is where my kids would hold on for dear life.
- [42:45]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle jumps up on the truck and gives me the briefest lesson in water hauling. And then I should not touch this valve, right?
- [42:54]
Kyle Lewis
Yeah.
- [42:55]
Charlie Edcity
That will spill all of it.
- [42:56]
Kyle Lewis
Yeah, it's turned off now. It's pretty rough.
- [42:59]
Katie Maloney
Okay.
- [43:00]
Kyle Lewis
Not too bad. Like, Aiden kind of hangs onto it for dear life, but he kind of exaggerates too much. It's not too bad.
- [43:06]
Charlie Edcity
I'm a little scared. Kyle attempts to pay with his card at the machine.
- [43:11]
Kyle Lewis
I'm trying to get the thing started now. So this one gives us a hard time.
- [43:25]
Charlie Edcity
Every time he swipes his card, the tiny screen says, try again. He swipes.
- [43:32]
Kyle Lewis
So if this goes down, then it causes an issue.
- [43:35]
Charlie Edcity
And swipes and swipes. So now that you've driven all the way over here and you can't get the card reader to work, your level of frustration is at what level Right.
- [43:47]
Kyle Lewis
Now, I think My mindset is already thinking about tomorrow. So now, whatever I had planned for tomorrow that I wanted to do, I'm gonna have to come out here first thing in the morning and get water.
- [43:59]
Charlie Edcity
So what's the plan if it still doesn't work tomorrow?
- [44:06]
Kyle Lewis
I don't know. I don't know.
- [44:09]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle proposes an idea. We're going to head to the gas station nearby and get a soda. Then we'll come back and try again. When your daily life depends on these systems outside of your control, sometimes there's no choice but to take a beat and try again. But as we're about to drive away, another truck pulls up. They swipe their card in the machine.
- [44:33]
Kyle Lewis
Think it worked? Yeah, it worked. Let's try it after them.
- [44:39]
Charlie Edcity
When they leave, we give it another go.
- [44:42]
Kyle Lewis
Oh, it worked.
- [44:44]
Charlie Edcity
Finally, it worked. I climb back up and hold the hose while I watched the water shoot into the tank. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you can feel it. It's, like, moving. Okay. I was like, don't let it overflow on me. Filling both tanks takes less than 15 minutes and is under $5. But when you add the cost of Kyle's truck maintenance and gas, it's a lot more expensive than a municipal water system. By some estimates, Navajo citizens pay 71 times more for their water than the average American. And then there's the time it all takes. The whole hauling trip will take around an hour and a half. Kyle usually rewards his other helpers.
- [45:27]
Kyle Lewis
Me and my kids, we have a tradition. As soon as we're done here, we usually go to the store and get ice cream and grab all our snacks, and then we drive back. And we have a lot of people who travel, who stop off the 40, and, like, they'll ask us, like, what are you hauling water for? For our life.
- [45:45]
Charlie Edcity
Kyle drives off, making the return trip he knows so well. But I keep thinking about the last thing he said. The Navajo Nation is the largest tribe in the United States. The reservation is the size of West Virginia, with 165,000 citizens living here. There's 400,000 tribal members in total, scattered around the country. Yet still a century after the Colorado Compact excluded us, most Americans don't even know there's a fight going on. A fight to secure our future, A fight to have something to pass on to the next generation. This series is not about feeling sorry for us. It's about justice. It's about my tribe's attempt to finally have their voice heard. And to do that, we had to take our case to the highest court in the land. We will hear argument this morning in case 2114 84, Arizona v. Navajo Nation and the consolidated case. In the next episode of Reclaimed, we'll be diving into a courtroom drama. The tribe's right to water is heard, but the opposition is fierce. I mean, this is in clear violation.
- [47:02]
Kyle Lewis
Of all norms, but also rules of the court.
- [47:04]
Charlie Edcity
I wondered, what on earth is going on? Where was our trustee? And that's basically the question was where was the United States reclaimed? The lifeblood of Navajo Nation is an original production of ABC Audio. The series was hosted by me, Charlie Edcity. It was written by Madeline Wood. This series was produced by Madeline Wood, Camille Peterson, Kiara Powell and Amira Williams, with help from Emily Schutz and Marwa Muwaki. Edited by Gianna Palmer. Our cultural consultant was Heather Tanana. Arielle Chester is our social producer. Our supervising producer is Susie Liu. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Liz Alessi and Lakia Brown. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our executive producer. And big thanks to my mom Christine Howard and my aunt Arlene Howard.
- [48:15]
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Charlie Edcity
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Uncle Tommy Lewis
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Charlie Edcity
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