Water fight returns to Congress
Navajo Times | Krista Allen
Lake Powell along the Colorado River winds through the red rock landscape of southern Utah, with Navajo Mountain rising in the distance. Water from the Colorado River system is central to ongoing water rights negotiations and settlements involving tribes and states across the Southwest.
Navajo leaders urged senators to ratify, fund a northeastern Arizona settlement, saying families still haul water by hand while major claims remain unresolved
ALBUQUERQUE
Navajo Nation leaders used Wednesday’s Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on S. 953, the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025, to press lawmakers to ratify and fund a major settlement they said would help bring water to families who still haul it by hand.
President Buu Nygren told senators that many Navajo families still use five-gallon buckets to collect drinking water and said roughly one-third of Navajo households still lack running water.
“I also grew up without running water,” Nygren said. “I remember hauling five gallons of buckets of water in a car daily when I would travel with my mom and my grandma.”
Nygren said the cost of hauling water can average about $600 a month for families.
“This is a this is crippling for the many who live below the poverty line on the Navajo Nation, Congress must act to end the water crisis,” Nygren said.
To read the full article, please see the March 12, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
Get instant access to this story by purchasing one of our many e-edition subscriptions HERE at our Navajo Times Store.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow