The case tests the federal government’s legal responsibility to tribal nations as drought tightens water resources in the West.
Navajo Nation
Posted inWater
Feds want U.S. Supreme Court justices to end Navajo fight for Colorado River water
The tribe doesn’t have enough water and says that the federal government is at fault
Posted inEquity
One Navajo community finally gets electricity after more than 10 years. It’s still waiting for water.
Westwater, a small subdivision in Utah, has run into barrier after barrier for more than 20 years as it tries to bring clean, running water to its residents.
Posted inClimate, Culture, Education, Environment, Equity, Health, Housing, News, Water
On the Navajo Nation, “putting seeds in the ground is our greatest act of resistance,” Fort Lewis students learn
SHIPROCK, NEW MEXICO — From foraging sweet berries in slickrock canyons to harvesting corn and fresh veggies from manicured fields and gardens, Kayla Yazzie learned about land from her great-grandmothers. Her childhood memories span the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation, from Tocito and Shiprock in New Mexico with her mother’s family, to St. Michaels, […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Environment, News
Navajo Nation, New Mexico reach settlements over Gold King Mine spill
By Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— The Navajo Nation’s Department of Justice announced Wednesday it has settled with mining companies to resolve claims stemming from a 2015 spill that resulted in rivers in three western states being fouled with a bright-yellow plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals. Under the settlement […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, News
Coronavirus collapsed America’s food system, but created “a pivotal and magical moment” for locavores
MOSCA — Sheldon Rockey weaves through pallets of potatoes in a long-retired high school gym as a small team of workers wash and package his trademarked fingerlings. “We just weren’t prepared for this, so there will be some livestock that will eat some gourmet potatoes this year,” says Rockey, who saw his innovative and competitive […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, Culture
Ute tribes reimagine Bear Dances, a key ceremony of renewal, as coronavirus locks down Colorado reservations
In normal, non-pandemic times, this is the season when the thrumming notes of a ceremonial song, the rasping of metal sticks rubbed on notched wood and the swinging and flicking of colorful fringed shawls would be kicking off the annual Bear Dances on Colorado’s American Indian reservations. Groups of dancers would sway back and forth, […]
Posted inCOVID, Environment, Health, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Warnings are working (for now) to keep visitors out of Colorado’s high country. But tickets, legal battles loom.
Police in Colorado’s mountain communities are doing a lot of educating and even issuing written warnings to violators of local and state health orders designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But if mask mandates, closures, restrictions and locals-only access rules linger for months, warnings will soon turn to tickets. And that worries Western […]