Tim is one of the people I have been following for the last couple of years on a project investigating a water supply divided along racial lines in the US south-west. He is Diné, which is what the Navajo call themselves; it means “the people” in the Navajo language. He had often told me about this pinnacle, a short walk from his family’s house, where he likes to sit, taking in the light playing across the red exposed bones of the earth.
In the Navajo Nation – the largest Indigenous Native American reservation in the US – a third of residents live without running water. Meanwhile, up until recently, Washington County in Utah – an Anglo community just 80 miles away – consumed the most water per person per day in the US, at 300 gallons, and paid the least for it. In the Navajo Nation water use is about five to 10 gallons per person per day and yet the Diné pay the most for what they do get, and some rural families have to drive one or two hours to a water source.
