Decades of effort have a Navajo community on the verge of clean water access
About 45 minutes west of Albuquerque, N.M., past miles of desert and a remote casino, is the turn off for To’Hajiilee, a non-contiguous part of the Navajo Nation. About 2,000 people live here and none of them have indoor access to good drinking water. … While To’Hajiilee’s isolation from the rest of the Navajo Nation makes it somewhat unique, its lack of access to clean drinking water is common across the sprawling reservation that stretches across parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Those living on the Navajo Nation are 67 times more likely to not have running water or a toilet than other Americans, according to the U.S. Water Alliance. It’s evident here that, as a 2021 national report by the alliance and DigDeep found, “race is the strongest predictor of water and sanitation access.”
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