Navajo Nation

Warm, breezy weather continues across the Four Corners. Plus, Cortez announces its July 4th celebration, Arizona enacts a Turquoise Alert for missing Indigenous people, and Navajo leaders push to protect Medicaid access.

A remote area of the Navajo Nation in southeast Utah is celebrating a long-awaited milestone — access to running water for the first time.

Today’s news includes widespread precipitation, the recovery of a missing girl in Arizona, Colorado immigration bill progress, Arizona vetoes, support for public media funding, and local infrastructure updates.

Federal cuts impact Teton County Library's popular CHOW and senior art programs, while the Navajo Nation Council confirms Jeanine Jones as the new Auditor General to modernize audit procedures.

Colorado lawmakers won't move forward with a bill requiring investor-owned utilities to eliminate their climate impact by 2040. Meanwhile, Diné citizens march to protect Navajo water.

The Gold King Mine disaster continues to impact communities, including the Navajo Nation. New legislation aims to provide further compensation for affected farmers and families, still waiting for recovery aid.

Following a statement of “strong disappointment” from the Navajo Nation Council, the U.S. Department of Defense is reportedly planning to restore information about Navajo Code Talkers it has deleted from some websites.

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.

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.

More than a week after an oil spill on agricultural land near Shiprock, New Mexico, some Navajo residents in the area say they have concerns about the pace and scale of the environmental cleanup.