According to federal data, compared with white households, Native American households are 19 times more likely to lack indoor plumbing. That figure jumps significantly for Navajo residents, who are 67 times more likely than other Americans to live without access to running water.
Citing this data, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on Tuesday announced he and colleagues from Colorado, Democratic U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, had introduced the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act.
“Nearly half of Native American households lack access to clean and reliable water supplies. That is completely unacceptable,” Heinrich said in a statement. “By addressing a significant backlog of infrastructure projects and removing barriers to federal programs that provide technical and financial assistance to Tribes, this legislation is an important step toward delivering clean drinking water to all families in Indian Country.”
The bill’s components include authorizing the United States Department of Agriculture to make grants and loans for technical and financial assistance, as well as for construction, and lays specific amounts over the next five years, including:
- increased funding authorizations for USDA’s Rural Development Community Facilities Grant and Loan Program by $100 million per year for five years;
- increasing funding authorizations for existing programs of the Indian Health Service for water and sanitation facilities construction;
- and authorizing $90 million over five years for the Bureau of Reclamation’s existing Native American Affairs Technical Assistance Program.
Heinrich previously introduced the bill in 2021 with Bennet. Heinrich, Bennet and Hickenlooper also backed billions for tribal water projects in that year’s infrastructure package.
In a statement of support for the legislation, Anne Castle, co-founder of the initiative on Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities noted that “some of the starkest examples of the public health impacts from not having clean, running water in the home are right in our backyards,” such as “higher incidence of respiratory disease, gastrointestinal infections, diabetes, and cancer.”
“Water is a sacred resource given to us to protect,” Santa Ana Pueblo Gob. Myron Armijo said in a statement. “It is of the utmost importance that Tribes have access to clean water not only for personal consumption and economic development but also for cultural purposes. Many tribes in the Southwest rely on access to clean water to carry on our culture and traditions.”
