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Navajo’s give their side of the story in response to recent High Country News article

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 24, 2008 at 5:59 am

The March issue of High Country News ran an extensive story (click here) about the Navajo Nation & the current litigation ensuing for them to claim their water rights. Ron Milford, who was featured in the article, took issue with much of it and has written a lengthy response, which High Country News is running unedited. Says High Country News: Though Milford’s statement levels a number of false accusations towards Jenkins, High Country News is running the full response by Milford et. al. here on hcn.org. We stand by the original story; it was not only well-written and comprehensive, but also accurate and balanced, giving Milford and his colleagues plenty of words to air their issues.

Mr. Milford’s response to the High Country News article:

In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. — George Orwell.

Featured in the March 17, 2008, issue of High Country News (HCN) and in the April 16 issue of the Navajo Times (the Times) was a Navajo water rights-related article by HCN’s Matt Jenkins titled “Seeking the Water Jackpot.” Letters to the HCN editor by concerned readers, like “Felice,” who wrote on 3/23/08, said things such as “I agree that Matt Jenkins did seem to have a bias against the grassroots Dine folks … .” Felice and like-minded reviewers of HCN and the Times do not know the half of it, which is why we wrote this reply.

Navajos’ Massive Unemployment

Jenkins opens his article by describing the deplorable condition of our infrastructure, including our roads, and our unemployment. He correctly said that unemployment is routinely at about 50%, and it has surged to 67%. The unemployment rate for Arizona, as we begin writing, is 4%. For the U.S. it is around 4.8%. During America’s “Great Depression” of the 1930s, it averaged 17%. The routine Navajo unemployment rate is therefore 1,150% higher than Arizona’s, almost 1,000% higher than the U.S. at large and almost 200% higher than the U.S. average during the Great Depression.

Jenkins’ condescending article suggests that Navajos should accept the state of things and the “drinking water” or, more correctly, the faucet water, focus that Navajo Nation water lawyer Stanley Pollack and his Navajo Water Rights Commission are mostly limiting their Arizona/Utah efforts to. The New Mexico settlement has similar and other serious limitations.

Having faucet water, avowedly important, nonetheless remains a minimalist start, e.g., every urban U.S. ghetto has faucet water. Also, economist and Indian law expert, Erik Jensen, has recently observed that “Substantial economic development in Indian Country will not occur without significant infusions of outside capital … .” Navajo, the largest tribe in North America, requires not a “significant” but an epic infusion of capital—the Navajo Nation is the size of West Virginia. The single major source for this desperately needed, anti-poverty, and pro-employment capital rests in the Navajo Nation’s water rights; including sovereign authority over rights, longdenied agricultural rights, and full compensation for waived and lost rights.

Pollack and the Water Commission have failed to even pose the question, “What will the last 30% of Navajos on the Nation, who still lack running water, have when the faucet water arrives?” In the absence of an immense infusion of capital, they’ll have the same 50% unemployment rate that prevails on the Nation now. Plus, without full rights, and the full compensation due for the valuable rights and priority dates waived and lost by Pollack and his Commission, Navajo will still have no sustainable way to maintain its economy or infrastructure like, say, Arizona does. What the Navajo Nation needs is something like the water and related values we already supply to Arizona; which has the fastest growth of any state in the U.S.

Read the rest of this rebuttal by clicking here.

July 24, 2008 · Filed Under Indian Water Rights

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