<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of CBS Sunday Morning at:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-water-lady-a-savior-among-the-navajo/">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-water-lady-a-savior-among-the-navajo/</a></div><div><br></div><div>---------------------------------------</div><div><h1 class="title" itemprop="headline" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-rendering: auto; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; word-spacing: -0.04em; line-height: 0.9; letter-spacing: -0.07em; font-size: 50px; font-family: nimbus-sans, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 32, 34);">The Water Lady: A savior among the Navajo</h1><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Water, water everywhere ..." A popular saying, without a drop of truth for some folks in one beautiful part of our country. Lee Cowan saw firsthand how they struggle to get by when he traveled there for our Sunday Morning Cover Story:</em></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It's easy to miss this corner of the Navajo Nation, just 100 miles west of Albuquerque. Most things pass the Reservation right by, including progress.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many of the roads here are unpaved. Electricity is spotty. Unemployment in the area hovers near 70 percent.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But perhaps most shocking of all? An estimated 40 percent of the people who live here don't have access to running water.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We don't use the sink because there's no running water," said Loretta Smith.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Smith and her husband share a small mobile home with their disabled seven-year-old granddaughter, Brianna.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">With no indoor plumbing, what little water the family has inside is carried in, bucket by bucket, stored in plastic barrels outside.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Cowan asked, "Do you feel sort of forgotten out here?"</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Yes, for sure," said Smith.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The area's main source of drinking water is miles away, in the parking lot of the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission, in the town of Thoreau, New Mexico.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Getting water here can mean a 100-mile round trip for some families, and the Mission's office manager, Cindy Howe, says many don't even have access to a car.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So what happens when they run out? "If they don't have any water, it's just, they don't have any water," said Howe.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She said it has always been that way here. "Sometimes I get so frustrated. Why is it? Why can't people get water?"</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And that's when Darlene Arviso comes in. They call her the "Water Lady."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Every day Arviso loads up her big yellow tanker truck and takes to the roads to deliver something most of us take for granted.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"When I see her coming, I'm like, 'Yes ! Yes! Water!'" Lucinda laughed.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Arviso is Navajo, born and raised right here on the Reservation. She pretty much knows everyone here.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She's used to carrying precious cargo; she's been driving the school bus on the Reservation for years.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But her water route is a job she considers almost sacred.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I'm proud of what I'm doing for my people. And I love my job."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"What do you love about it so much?"</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I go out every day to meet different families," she said.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There are 250 homes on her route, and she can only get to each family once a month -- and sometimes not even then, if the mud gets too thick.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Which is why when she DOES make it, it's often treated like a celebration.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Nina Garcia has never had a day with running water in her life. Unlike the rest of us, who use about 100 gallons of water a day, Nina has been getting by on only about seven -- a hard truth Arviso has a hard time watching.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Sometimes I wish I could do more," she told Cowan.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"How do they make it last so long?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Well, they just have to stretch out their water,"</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I say this, you know, having been raised Catholic with full knowledge of what I'm saying -- Darlene Arviso is a living saint," said George McGraw, who runs a non-profit called DigDeep.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The fact that McGraw is on the Reservation at all is a testament to just how dire the Navajo situation is. He normally works in developing countries -- digging wells in places like South Sudan, Kashmir and Cameroon.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But now the problem is right in his backyard. "I really had no concept that this kind of material poverty existed in the U.S.," he said.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But it does. The question is, why?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Cowan took that question to Dan McCool, a political science professor at the University of Utah, who has studied Indian water rights for the last 40 years.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It should be regarded as a national embarrassment," he said of the water situation.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"How is this possible in this day and age that Americans don't have running water?" Cowan asked.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"American Indians in Arizona and New Mexico were not allowed to vote until 1948," McCool said. "They did not have a voice. They weren't in line politically when the money, the funding, the projects and the water [were] being allocated."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So the only source of water left for the Navajo is groundwater, lying deep beneath the hard rock of the Continental Divide.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We took this project to hydrogeologists, to engineers, to construction specialists all over the country, even here in the Southwest," said McGraw. "And everyone said, 'Well, this is one of the most challenging projects we've ever seen.'"</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Even if they can find water, it might not be drinkable.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"You'd probably start to hit water here at about 600 feet, but the water you'd get out would be laced with uranium."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That's from years of mining on the reservation during World War II.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Older water wells dot the landscape.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sarah Begay, who's lived on the reservation all her life, took Cowan to one. It's still pumping water, but few dare drink from it anymore.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Begay said that for about 20-30 years it was fine, but then people started getting sick.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So DigDeep must dig deeper -- and the clock is ticking.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Running out of water by the middle of the month is a painful experience," said George McGraw. "Most of them still do."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Lindsay Johnson makes sure she doesn't run out. She has a system to conserve every drop Arviso delivers.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"What would you do without her?" Cowan asked.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I don't know!" she laughed.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Aside from her morning coffee mug, she uses only paper plates and cups so she doesn't have to wash dishes.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Like her fellow Navajos, Lindsay shares her home with as many as eight other people.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When it comes to washing hair, two, maybe three of them will all use the same water.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Lindsay's 16-year-old granddaughter, Yvonne, says almost everyone here finds ways to cope without running water, but few want to talk about it.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"People don't share their stories," she said. "I don't either. It's kind of embarrassing. It's just hard."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So, Cowan asked, who's to blame for this situation?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"The counties and the states say it's the Federal responsibility, and the Feds say, no, we're broke, it's the state's and county's responsibility," said McCool.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"So a lot of finger-pointing," said Cowan.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Oh yeah, and a lot of passing the buck."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And so, the Navajo wait.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">George McGraw's DigDeep well is coming along, but it will cost close to $500,000 to complete -- all of it funded by donations.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But even if the well gets up and pumping, Darlene Arviso still won't be out of a job. A new well doesn't mean homes will suddenly have new plumbing.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What it means is clean water will be more readily accessible -- a first step. The next will be building gravity-fed storage tanks that could be hooked up to faucets inside.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But that's several years -- and probably countless fundraisers -- away.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Things are not simple here," said McGraw. "But every time we have even the smallest success in this project, those little moments are so tremendously impactful to me. I think I'm really starting to live for this project. It's ours."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Do you think you'll ever see a day where everyone here has water?" asked Cowan.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I just hope so!" Arviso laughed. "I just pray that they'll have running water, yeah."</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A simple wish the Navajo people hope won't just be drop in an already-empty bucket.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; display: inline; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">40 percent of people living in Navajo Nation have no access to running water, so Darlene Arviso drives her tanker filled with a most precious cargo.</p></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/Photos/Darlene_Arviso_Navajo_Water_081615.jpg">http://www.tomandrodna.com/Photos/Darlene_Arviso_Navajo_Water_081615.jpg</a></div><div><br></div><div>---------------------------------------</div><div><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" </span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>