Hopis: Protectors of Earth and Water

A Hopi maiden, honored with the task of collecting water for their sacred ceremony, steps down the steep, rocky trail to the ancient spring.  As she climbs, she recalls the sacred covenant that her people made with Maasaw, the caretaker of the earth. Maasaw entrusted the tribe with the 3 POINTS needed to build a strong society.

• An ear of corn: representing food for the body and soul.
• A gourd of water: the gourd being a reminder that the water (from a confined aquifer) is limited so it must be preserved.
• The planting stick: the simple technology necessary to grow things in the desert.

She affirms the covenant her tribe made to be humble farmers, respectful of the land and the water. She bends down to scoop up some water with a gourd. But the water level has gone down so far that she can barely reach it. This is one of a few springs still flowing on the Hopi nation.  

The Hopi tribe is a sovereign nation located in northeastern Arizona. The reservation occupies part of Coconino and Navajo counties, encompassing more than 1.5 million acres. It is made up of 12 villages situated on three mesas. Their pueblo-style villages were settled in 900 AD. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited human settlements in the Americas and the people still maintain their culture. These resourceful people developed a method of dry land farming that sustained them as long as they kept their covenant to protect the water.

In the 1960s, the American government strong-armed the Hopi and Navajo into signing an agreement with the world’s largest coal company.  In 1970, Peabody Energy started strip mining their mesas destroying hundreds of archaeological sites.  From 1970 – 2005 alone over 45 billion gallons of pristine drinking water was pumped out of their confined desert aquifer to transport slurry (ground coal mixed with water) through pipes to a power generator in Nevada.  That was enough water to last the whole tribe of 10,000 for 300 years.

The tribe has paid dearly for breaking the covenant to protect the earth and water. Close to 400 million gallons of pristine drinking water is still pumped annually for the Kayenta Mine. Peabody pays them 3/10 of a cent per gallon.  Most of the rivers and streams that sustained the tribe since ancient times have dried up or have been polluted by runoff from the mine.

The coal is used to run the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona. The Western United States' largest generating system was built to power the pumps that push Colorado River water over 300 miles UPHILL to Phoenix and Tucson as part of the Central Arizona Project. Yes, that’s how we get our CAP water.

Because of the name, people think that it is owned by the Navajo people. It’s not. The tribes don’t get any of the water or power. Many people live in poverty with no running water or electricity. They drive 20 miles for drinking water. The U.S. government pronounced their sacred land a national sacrifice area in order to build up the southwest.

   

On top of that, the tribes were cheated out of the fair market value for the land and water. The Hopi receive only two million dollars a year, while Peabody generates $5.6 billion. To put this in perspective, their CEO alone makes three million dollars a year.  

Before their land was savaged by the mines, these tribes were self-sufficient farmers and shepherds. They are now forced to rely on the mines for roughly 50 percent of their jobs. The remainder are unemployed.

Vernon Masayesva, the founder of Black Mesa Trust, is fighting to shut down the coal powered generator permanently and replace it with solar energy.  This fight isn’t just for the Hopi and Navajo people. It is for all of us. The amount of pollution this plant is making is appalling. EPA spokesman Rusty Harris-Bishop confirmed that the Navajo Generating Station is one of the largest sources of nitrogen oxide emissions in the country.  It is an UPHILL battle, because many tribe members won’t hear of shutting down the mines, since family members still work there.

 An honored storyteller, Vernon evokes the revered teachings of the ancients on the 3 POINTS needed to build a strong society: an ear of corn, a gourd of water and the planting stick. He encourages the tribe to renew their covenant with Maasaw to be protectors of the land and the water. Black Mesa Trust is currently conducting workshops to teach their teens how to harvest the rain water and return to the ancient methods of dry desert farming. The Hopi Raincatchers are using traditional and modern knowledge to build ravines with boulders to restore their watersheds. 

 “Traditions, history about who we are, and where we came from, and what our responsibility is to the world and to peoples all over the world. That is one of our main moral obligations,” Vernon explains. “To be protectors of the land, to be good stewards of the land.  Which is why this mining company is such an intrusion on our way of life. It’s a violation of our beliefs.”

We have so much to learn about being sustainable in our desert from the Hopi way of life. They share important lessons about protecting and being good stewards of the earth.  The people of Tucson’s Mission Garden are incorporating similar dry land farming techniques and learning how to grow sturdy heritage plants from the Tohono O’odham.

Even after being exploited, the Hopi feel a great responsibility to share what they have learned with the rest of the world. They are leading the Water Movement.

It’s time Tucson joined that movement. Recently, poisonous tailings from abandoned mines seeped into the streams that feed the Colorado River. The water in the reservoirs is evaporating at record rates. As temperatures continue to rise and more states experience droughts, there will be even more competition for that water.  

As we wake up to the reality that we don’t have an unlimited supply of water, there is much we can learn from the devastating impact of coal mining on the Hopi and Navajo lands. Currently, a foreign mining company has plans to build a mine on the Tohono O’odham Reservation. They will take advantage of an antiquated 1880s law and pay the tribe $5 an acre. The proposed Rosemont mine will destroy the desert habitat where the people gather their food, and contaminate their streams and rivers.  It will also deplete 20% of Tucson’s ground water.

Our representatives are pushing for these mines because they create jobs. But those jobs are temporary.  Ask the 400 workers who just lost their jobs at the mine near Green Valley or the Peabody workers whose wages will be decreased to cut back costs as the company reorganizes. Peabody just filed for Chapter 11 protection and is trying to avoid complying with the new pollution controls. But that won’t stop the company from pursuing more profit by expanding their operations on the Hopi reservation. (The mining company wants to expand, increasing coal production to 5.7 million tons a year and increase the water use by 33%.) It just allows the company to place the burden of cleaning up their mines on American taxpayers. 

UPDATE: Since this blog was written, Congress passed a law allowing mining companies to dump their toxic tailings into our waterways and not be responsible for the clean up.  

It’s time to join the movement to preserve our precious water by implementing sustainable desert farming practices and supporting a transition from fossil fuel energy to solar power. Let’s unite with our indigenous brothers and sisters and proclaim our Declaration of Water.

Declaration of Water

As children of water,
we raise our voices in solidarity to speak for all waters.

Water, the breath of all life, water the sustainer of all life,
water the voice of our ancestors, water pristine
and powerful.

Today we join hands, determined to honor,
trust and follow the ancient wisdom of our ancestors
whose teachings and messages continue to
live through us.

The message is clear: Honor and respect water
as a sacred and life-giving gift from the Creator of Life.
Water, the first living spirit on Earth.

All living beings come from water,
all is sustained by water,
all will return to water to begin life anew.

We are of water, and the water is of us.
When water is threatened, all living things are
threatened.

What we do to water, we do to ourselves.

Adopted at the Hopi Hisot Navoti Gathering
October 23, 2003 Second Mesa, Arizona

Here's how you can help  Black Mesa Trust.

UPDATE: Navajo Generating Station is closing. Tribal leaders, utilities, the federal government and energy companies must address injustices of the past to pave the way to a clean energy future for the Navajo. Find out how here!

Restore the Flow!

The water must flow.

Yet it so often does not.

The water must flow.

I'll admit...it's a pretty bad haiku. That was my entry in the poetry slam at the Watershed Management Group's Flow & Feast event held last night at a ranch that straddles Sabino Creek. I was inspired by the good fellowship, great food and drink, and by the number of enthusiastic people who joined together to share the dream of restoring Tucson's watershed.

Did you know that most of the now dry riverbeds in Tucson used to have running water in them nearly year-round? That Sabino Creek had running water for 200 days this year? We can increase that number by implementing common sense measures to reduce our impact on Tucson's aquifer. For much of Tucson's history, we were water self-sufficient, but over-development and unsustainable practices have made that impossible. So, we joined together on Saturday night, wearing our blue to symbolize flowing water, to envision a future where Sabino Creek flows nearly year round.

Restore the flow!

We can do this. It's really not that hard, it just requires being mindful of how we use water and where our water goes to and comes from. It's actually a lot of fun to observe the water flows in your own yard and imagine how you can redesign your landscape to make use of that totally free resource we all have available to us. When we think of the Sonoran desert, we think of Saguaro - and with good reason. But we should remember that these are also native to our desert:

We can restore our riparian areas. We can restore the flow.

Desert Landscaping: Going Native for Tucson's Rivers

There are some things that just drive me crazy! Like...why are there still patches of lawn in the Tucson desert? And those little rocks that get caught in your sandals – gravel!  I understand why people put gravel in their yards.  It conserves water, sure.  I don’t want to spend all weekend weeding either. But if you look at the sun cracked, gravel covered plastic we use to tame it, there are signs of life (weeds) breaking through. When some people think of the desert, they think of dirt. But our dirt is brimming with untamed life. 

When I first came to Tucson, I was amazed by all the green in our desert: our famous saguaros, prickly pears towering over roof tops, agaves with stalks resembling giant asparagus, and cholla cactuses lining the horizon like furry puppies glowing in the afternoon sun.  (Don’t try petting them though!) Twisted and gnarled Mesquite and Paloverde trees grow amok. This time of year wild flowers speckle the ground. The desert hums with bees pollinating brilliant cactus blooms. Our tough desert plants are adept at storing water for the long dry spells.

There are seasons when our desert has an overabundance of water. In the spring, icy water bounds down the Catalina Mountains into rushing rivers and streams. During Monsoon season, our washes rage and overflow. Not enough of this water sinks into our aquifer, because the caliche ground has turned hard from inconsistent rain. Instead our precious rain water is collected in city streets to be polluted with automobile oil. Lack of foresight and understanding have left us with no infrastructure to retain the water for our daily use. Miles and miles of cement aqueducts bring us water from the Colorado River. But we are beginning to see how vulnerable that supply is as poisonous tailings from long abandoned mines leak into Colorado’s rivers reaching as far as our own Lake Powell.

It wasn’t always like that. Tucson is one of the oldest settlements in the country.  Native Americans and Mexicans settled here for the abundant Santa Cruz river water. The Hohokam, expert desert farmers, created an elaborate irrigation system connected to the river. They captured rainwater with rock dams and storage tanks. The Tohono O'odham crafted earthen dams and brush weirs to divert water from washes to crops. There was a riparian habitat with abundant trees and animals. It wasn’t that long ago that our rivers and streams flowed year around. Old time Tucsonans still reminisce about playing in the river as children.

This was before bad management, over-pumping and drought depleted our ground water and turned those rivers into dry river beds. It was before cement and gravel covered the earth. 

Hope is budding around the desert like native wild flowers. Nestled in nearby neighborhoods are shady desert oases boasting colorful native flora and fauna.  Some are nourished with rainwater runoff from roofs or gray water from washing machines.  Water is diverted into the yards using berms and rocks to direct the flow to catchment basins where water soaks into the ground to nourish plants.

Tucson’s own Watershed Management Group is inspiring local homeowners and businesses to develop more sustainable landscaping. All this might seem overwhelming, but the WMG is here to help. They offer free classes on rainwater and greywater harvesting. You can learn more by taking their field studies courses. You can get started on creating your own desert oasis by joining their coop and working on other people’s yards. When you accumulate 19 hours, the volunteers will work on your yard for free (not including the cost of materials and consultation/supervisor.) Dan and I have started the process by taking classes and joining WMG's coop so we can transform our own yard using rainwater and greywater harvesting.

 Organic mulch and native grass in catchment basin allow water to seep into the ground.

One of the most incredible things we learned in Watershed Management Group’s classes is that we can all play a part in refurbishing our ground water so the Sabino and Tanque Verde Creeks will flow into the Santa Cruz River once again!

There are signs of positive change throughout the city. Tucson Water offers rebates for homeowners to install rainwater harvesting and graywater systems. The city is taking baby steps towards better water management. While there are still patches of grass by the Old Courthouse, there are also curb cuts to water native trees outside of the new County Public Service Center.  

emitters watering boulders

If we dig up all that boring gravel and enhance our rustic desert landscape with rainwater harvesting, we can play a part in replenishing Tucson’s groundwater so we can enjoy flowing rivers surrounded by flourishing Cottonwood and Willow trees.

UPDATE SEPT. 1, 2019: I am so excited about the City's Proposed Stormwater Management Program. Installing more Green Stormwater Infrastructure is one of the most impactful actions we can take to make Tucson water independent and secure in the future. As a citizen advocate, I have attended G.I. planning meetings at the Pima Department of Environmental Quality. I'm so impressed by the incredible the work that the city and county are doing to implement Green Stormwater infrastructure using guidelines by Watershed Management Group. To really be sustainable, we need these systems to be built all over town and to be maintained.

UPDATE MAY 1, 2020: Green Stormwater Infrastructure fee was included on utility service statements for residents and businesses within the City of Tucson to pay for maintenence of GSI.

UPDATE 2021: The City hired Blue Baldwin as Tucson Water's green stormwater infrastructure program manager. In November, Dan and I participated in a training to monitor GSI installations with city and county employees. In December, we also attended GSI maintenance training for landscapers and maintenance people working on the city's GSI features.