Wheatfields farmers still waiting for water

First they were told they were going to get water at the beginning of this growing season.

Last week, more than halfway through said growing season, the farmers of Wheatfields gathered to watch water start flowing through the several-mile-long 24-inch pipe that is supposed to irrigate some 500 acres below Wheatfields Dam.

But no one from the Navajo Nation Safety of Dams Program showed up to turn it on.

On Monday, July 26, the water was finally flowing. But by Wednesday it was off again after several leaks and blown valves were detected in the $1.2 million system.

One would think the farmers would be getting frustrated, and some of them clearly are - the two blown valves were traced to one who got a little overzealous and let too much water through before the system was tested.

But for the most part, said farmer and college student Danny John Jr., "morale is good."

"Everybody's excited," John said. "Most of us have written off this growing season, but we're excited for next spring."

The growers and ranchers have been waiting nine years since the project was first approved by the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and they seem willing to wait a little longer.

"There are a few glitches, but they're pretty minor," John said.

Ralph Goh, an engineer with the Flagstaff NRCS office who came out Wednesday to inspect the system, said it would have been the exception to the rule if they had turned it on and everything worked right.

"Any time you have pipe, you have potential for leakage," he said. "That's why, everything from irrigation to a municipal water system, you test it first."

This green, sloping valley was once the breadbasket of the Navajo Nation, said Danny John Sr., Danny Jr.'s father and a member of the Tsaile/Wheatfields Farm Board, which saw the project through. People grew corn, oats, alfalfa, squash, melons and potatoes, enough to feed their families and sell the rest.

Back then it was irrigated by an open ditch running from Wheatfields reservoir. Neighbors helped each other clear and maintain the network of ditches.

"That was back when people helped each other," said Danny Sr., who reveals his age only as "60-plus." "It wasn't uncommon to see up to 10 men and their teams plowing the same field."

Danny Jr., 38, remembers the ditches. As a toddler, he would follow his family out to the farm and wade in them, hoping to catch a fish. But before he could learn much about farming, it started to fade away.

By the mid-1970s, the handful of remaining Navajo farmers could no longer compete with the cheap produce flooding in from Phoenix and other areas. People had to take second jobs, and didn't have time to help each other clear ditches.

With all the weeds and gopher holes in the system, it took nearly 24 hours for water from the lake to reach the Johns' farm toward the end of the line. One by one, the little farms were abandoned or converted to dryland hay.

In 2001, the farm board submitted a proposal for an enclosed irrigation system to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Environmental Quality Incentives Program. It was approved but languished because the board could never come up with the 25 percent match the program requires.

Finally, last year, the board was able to wangle the match out of a combination of funding and in-kind donations from the chapter, the BIA, the Navajo Nation and the Office of the Speaker as well as its own savings.

Both older and younger Wheatfields residents are looking toward the project to change the face of their area.

"It's going to revitalize farming," Danny Sr. predicted. "We'll be able to have the younger people get to farming again."

Danny Jr. says he needs to "do some homework" to see if it'll be worth scrapping his welding career to come back to the farm full time. But he'd sure like to.

"Spending the day working out in your field, taking care of your crops and animals ... it's a lifestyle we have to get accustomed to again," he said. "I think it would be a good lifestyle."

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