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In Pictures: Navajo Nation’s water-scarce life

Decades of severe drought is drying the lifeblood of Navajo ranchers as their lands become desert.

Maybelle Sloan, 59, and her husband, Leonard Sloan, 64, both from Navajo Nation, give water to their cattle, in the Bodaway Chapter in the Navajo Nation in Gap, Arizona. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Maybelle Sloan, 59, and her husband, Leonard Sloan, 64, both from Navajo Nation, give water to their cattle, in the Bodaway Chapter in the Navajo Nation in Gap, Arizona. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
6 Oct 2020

Two decades into a severe drought on the Navajo reservation, the open range around Maybelle Sloan’s sheep farm stretches out in a brown expanse of earth and sagebrush.

A dry wind blows dust across the high-desert plateau, smoke from wildfires in Arizona and California shrouding the nearby rim of the Grand Canyon.

The summer monsoon rains have failed again and the stock ponds – meant to collect rainwater for the hot summer months – are dry.

With no groundwater for her animals, Sloan, 59, fills a drinking trough for them with water from a 1,200-gallon (5,400 litre) white plastic tank.

She and her husband, Leonard, have to pay up to $300 to have the tank filled as her pick-up truck has broken down.

When it works, she hauls the water herself every two days, spending $80 a week on fuel.

The Navajo Nation, which covers nearly 70,000 square kilometres (27,000 square miles) straddling the US states of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, competes with growing cities like Phoenix for its water supply.

As climate change dries out the US West, even that supply is becoming increasingly precarious.

Maybelle Sloan and her husband spend between $3,000 and $4,000 a year on hay to supplement their animals’ feed now that the open range doesn't produce enough grass to sustain them. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Maybelle Sloan and her husband spend between $3,000 and $4,000 a year on hay to supplement their animals’ feed now that the open range doesn't produce enough grass to sustain them. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
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Water is becoming increasingly precarious as climate change dries out the US West. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Water is becoming increasingly precarious as climate change dries out the US West. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Sarah Begay, 85, walks on her family compound in a remote part of the Bodaway Chapter. The Navajo traditionally live in compounds with dwellings for extended family members on them. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Sarah Begay, 85, walks on her family compound in a remote part of the Bodaway Chapter. The Navajo traditionally live in compounds with dwellings for extended family members on them. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
This year's June to August period was the driest on record in the area. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
This year's June to August period was the driest on record in the area. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Mary Secody sits inside her home in the Bodaway Chapter. Secody has electricity and running water now but says she lived without it for most of her life. It was only in the 1990s, she said, that she got both running water and electricity in her home. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Mary Secody sits inside her home in the Bodaway Chapter. Secody has electricity and running water now but says she lived without it for most of her life. It was only in the 1990s, she said, that she got both running water and electricity in her home. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Previoulsy, "We got rain every year around June, July and August," according to Leonard Sloan. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Previoulsy, "We got rain every year around June, July and August," according to Leonard Sloan. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
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Summer Weeks, 23, bathes her daughter, in a tub outside their home in the Bodaway Chapter. The family lives in a house with no running water or electricity on a family compound "I don't mind living without running water and electricity. I grew up this way so I'm used to it. I came here because I wanted my kids to have the same kind of upbringing that I had," said Summer. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Summer Weeks, 23, bathes her daughter, in a tub outside their home in the Bodaway Chapter. The family lives in a house with no running water or electricity on a family compound "I don't mind living without running water and electricity. I grew up this way so I'm used to it. I came here because I wanted my kids to have the same kind of upbringing that I had," said Summer. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Joshua Manuelito waters his garden at his home in the Bodaway Chapter. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Joshua Manuelito waters his garden at his home in the Bodaway Chapter. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
On paper, the Navajo Nation has extensive water rights but in practice, the Navajos and other tribes were left out of many 20th-century negotiations divvying up the West’s water. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
On paper, the Navajo Nation has extensive water rights but in practice, the Navajos and other tribes were left out of many 20th-century negotiations divvying up the West’s water. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Eugene Boonie, 55, fills up his water tank at the livestock water spigot in the Bodaway Chapter. "We have to come here to get our water every other day. Pretty much everyone in this area gets their water here. We used to be able to collect rainwater but it just has not been raining this summer or even for the past couple of years," said Boonie. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Eugene Boonie, 55, fills up his water tank at the livestock water spigot in the Bodaway Chapter. "We have to come here to get our water every other day. Pretty much everyone in this area gets their water here. We used to be able to collect rainwater but it just has not been raining this summer or even for the past couple of years," said Boonie. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Some young people help their grandparents haul water every day from the sole well for livestock in the Bodaway-Gap area. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Some young people help their grandparents haul water every day from the sole well for livestock in the Bodaway-Gap area. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Drought conditions on the reservation have become largely relentless since the mid-1990s. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
Drought conditions on the reservation have become largely relentless since the mid-1990s. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
The Glen Canyon Dam, situated just north of the Navajo Nation, which creates Lake Powell from the Colorado River. All but one of the reservation’s rivers have stopped running year-round, said Margaret Redsteer, a scientist at the University of Washington in Bothell. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]
The Glen Canyon Dam, situated just north of the Navajo Nation, which creates Lake Powell from the Colorado River. All but one of the reservation’s rivers have stopped running year-round, said Margaret Redsteer, a scientist at the University of Washington in Bothell. [Stephanie Keith/Reuters]

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