Rising Temperatures And Drought Conditions Intensify Water Shortage For Navajo Nation

THOREAU, NEW MEXICO - JUNE 06: Darlene Arviso waves to a friend as she delivers water to members of the Navajo Nation on June 06, 2019 in Thoreau, New Mexico. Due to a legacy of poverty, marginalization, and disputed water rights, up to 40 percent of Navajo Nation households don’t have clean running water at home and are forced to rely on weekly and daily visits to water pumps. The problem for the Navajo Nation, a population of over 200,000 and the largest federally-recognized sovereign tribe in the U.S. in land area, is so significant that generations of families have never experienced indoor plumbing. Rising temperatures associated with global warming have worsened drought conditions on their lands over recent decades leading to a worsening of water access. The reservation consists of a 27,000-square-mile area of desert and high plains in New Mexico, southern Utah and Arizona. The Navajo Water Project, a nonprofit from the water advocacy group Dig Deep, has been working on Navajo lands in New Mexico since 2013 funding a mobile water delivery truck and digging and installing water tanks to individual homes. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)