The U.S. EPA has announced that it reached a settlement with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority that means the NTUA has agreed to improve wastewater treatment facilities in three communities in northern Arizona. The Department of Justice filed a complaint on behalf of the EPA that says the facilities violated Clean Water Act permits meant to protect human health and the environment by discharging wastewater not treated to proper levels into washes across the tribal nation. It also says the NTUA failed to maintain their facilities’ sewage systems and prevent sewage spills. The roughly $100 million settlement will mean some short-term and long-term upgrades to facilities in Chinle, Kayenta and Tuba City that serve about 20,000 people, mostly Navajo citizens. And four seats on the Cortez City Council are open in the upcoming election on April 2. Nomination packets are available at City Hall, and are due this Monday, January 22.

On Friday, a Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council member was indicted by a grand jury for 12 counts of alleged sexual abuse and assault that took place on the reservation. In a special meeting held on Saturday, the Tribal Council moved to place Lyndreth Hemp Wall on unpaid administrative leave indefinitely if he doesn’t quickly resign. They also removed Wall from his appointments to boards and commissions and issued a formal reprimand. Wall is a former Montezuma-Cortez school board member and a well-known figure in the area. If he’s convicted of a felony, he could be removed from the Council by a two-thirds vote that would also bar him from serving on it again. And this weekend, a mainstay of local journalism in southwestern Colorado, the Four Corners Free Press, will print its final issue.

Last month, the Montezuma County Board of Commissioners voted to cut 10 positions from the Sheriff’s Office. In response, employees have petitioned the state of Colorado to begin the process of collective bargaining in the new year. Allen Phelps is a detective at the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office and the president of Mesa Verde Lodge 74 Fraternal Order of Police. Without proper staffing levels, Phelps says the office is unable to adequately deal with the number of homicides, sexual assaults and property crimes that occur in the county. Phelps says 70 of 72 employees at the office signed petitions in favor of collective bargaining, which will now initiate a ballot election. And a plane crash in a forest north of Dolores resulted in two deaths this past weekend.

At a Shiprock Chapter meeting this Wednesday, officials will vote on a resolution that calls for independent oversight of cleanup efforts after an oil spill north of town. Residents held a meeting on Saturday to discuss the ramifications of the spill and the community-drafted resolution, which also requests an investigation into the cause of the incident by both the U.S. EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department. Last month, a pipeline that transports crude oil from New Mexico to Aneth, Utah, was breached by a grading truck on agricultural land. The pipeline is operated by a subsidiary of Navajo Nation Oil and Gas, which is a tribal enterprise. Beverly Maxwell and other Navajo residents who live near the spill are frustrated with what they describe as a lack of communication from local and national tribal authorities about details of the still-ongoing cleanup.

The first conventional uranium mining done in the U.S. in eight years is underway at three mines in Utah and Arizona. Energy Fuels Resources says that it plans to stockpile and eventually process the uranium at its White Mesa mill facility in southeastern Utah, the last of its kind still operating in the U.S. Scott Clow is the environmental programs director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, which is located near the White Mesa mill. Clow says he and the tribe oppose the increase in uranium production, citing the potential for a rise in air pollution for tribal residents living near the mill. He’s also concerned about the contamination of groundwater. Energy Fuels said high market prices for uranium combined with helpful government policies and the high demand for fuel for nuclear power plants also led to the decision to increase mining.

A federal program tasked with surveying abandoned uranium mines used during the Cold War era held a meeting last week about mines located on the Navajo Nation. More than 3,400 defense-related uranium mines are scattered throughout the Four Corners region, the result of a prospecting rush beginning in the 1940s sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The meeting was held in Sanostee, New Mexico, a community that’s home to 12 such abandoned mines, many of which are located at the base of the Chuska Mountains near the Sanostee Wash. The Defense-Related Uranium Mine program, or DRUM, is a Department of Energy initiative started in 2017 to both survey abandoned mines and ensure they’re sealed off and inaccessible to the public. Some Sanostee residents who attended the meeting expressed concern about runoff from the mines and its effects on livestock that graze nearby, as well as potential health problems for residents, like cancer.

On Tuesday morning, Navajo sheep herders and Montezuma Land Conservancy will come together at a farm in Lewis to celebrate a threatened breed of sheep and its place in Diné culture. The Navajo-Churro sheep breed became endangered in the 1930s due to livestock reduction policies implemented by the U.S. government. Montezuma Land Conservancy offered for Navajo herders from Teec Nos Pos, Arizona to have their Churro sheep graze at a farm north of Cortez in exchange for education for the public on weaving and wool. Roy Kady is a member of the Navajo Nation and a weaver who’s contributing to the revitalization of the breed, which began in the 70s. He and his apprentice herders – most of them younger Navajo citizens living on the reservation, many in Teec Nos Pos – will be holding fiber and weaving demonstrations at Fozzie’s Farm. And last week, residents of Montezuma County attended a meeting in the Dolores Public Library on the need for more veterinarians for the area, including those who respond to after-hours emergencies.

On Wednesday morning, flags were lowered to half mast for the funeral service for a Cortez police officer who was killed in the line of duty last week. Hundreds of police vehicles formed the motorcade for Sgt. Michael Moran. The funeral was held at the Cortez Recreation Center and was not open to the public. And Montezuma Land Conservancy will hold a sheep celebration event at Fozzie’s Farm in Lewis, Colorado on Tuesday next week, in partnership with Navajo sheep herders. The event will include the butchering of a sheep in accordance with Diné cultural tradition, starting at around 8 a.m. At 10 a.m., Diné fiber artists will hold workshops and demonstrations. Herders in Teec Nos Pos loaned their sheep and goats to Fozzie’s Farm as part of a cultural exchange with Montezuma Land Conservancy, or MLC.

On Friday, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold visited Towaoc and met with officials from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to discuss automatic voter registration for the state’s tribal communities. The Colorado Votes Act passed by the legislature earlier this year means some enrolled tribal members in Colorado will be automatically registered to vote. It’s the first instance of automatic voter registration for enrolled members of tribal nations in the U.S., and is part of a broader election reform package by the Secretary of State’s office. Griswold says that since she was elected in 2019, her office has been considering ways they could try to reverse the historical voter suppression of Native American people in Colorado. And the funeral for the Cortez police officer who was killed in the line of duty last week takes place on Wednesday morning.

An officer in the Cortez Police Department was shot and killed in the line of duty on Wednesday. The officer conducted a traffic stop on South Broadway around 11:30 a.m., during which he was shot and injured. The suspects fled in their vehicle but were quickly located. One suspect was shot by police and died at the scene, the other was taken into custody. The officer, who has not yet been identified, was taken to Southwest Memorial Hospital and later died from his injuries. And on Tuesday, the Cortez City Council passed a resolution in support of a grant to fund archaeological surveys of Carpenter and Geer natural areas to identify prehistoric sites. The city’s Historic Preservation Board recommended that the city apply for the grant from the Colorado Historical Society. A preliminary survey conducted in 1993 by the city found six areas of interest in the Carpenter area alone. Geer has never been studied.