{"id":13843,"date":"2016-08-24T07:15:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T13:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=13843"},"modified":"2016-08-24T07:15:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T13:15:36","slug":"in-crow-country-a-new-water-system-brings-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/08\/in-crow-country-a-new-water-system-brings-life\/","title":{"rendered":"In Crow Country, a new water system brings life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bodies\"<\/a>

Environmental Health News<\/p>

One pupil at Crow Agency Public School draws an outline of another’s form as part of learning about water in our bodies.<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor’s Note<\/strong>: This story is part of “Sacred Water<\/a>,” Environmental Health New’s ongoing investigation into Native American struggles\u2014and successes\u2014to protect culturally significant water sources on and off the reservation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read Part 1<\/strong>: Tainted water imperils health, traditions for Montana tribe<\/a><\/p>\n

CROW RESERVATION\u2014 Alisara Knaub saw firsthand how contaminated water can upend your life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter is 3, her first year she couldn\u2019t gain weight,\u201d says Knaub, a greenhouse assistant at Little Big Horn College. \u201cThe doctor said our water was the main reason.”<\/p>\n

Knaub, who lives near the town of Lodge Grass on the reservation, couldn\u2019t recall the exact bacteria in her water but she knows it\u2019s there: she doesn\u2019t wash dishes with her well water. Guests who drink it get sick.<\/p>\n

Bacteria such as E. coli can cause diarrhea and vomiting. Half the people on the reservation are on well water. \u201cPeople fear turning on their taps,\u201d Knaub says.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t an easy fix for the Crow Nation\u2019s bacteria-filled springs and metal-spewing home wells, but a federal boost and a renewed focus on youth aims to clean up and reenergize the tribe\u2019s relationship with water.<\/p>\n

A water system in the works, with clean energy and irrigation dollars attached, has Crow members encouraged. But that’s 10 to 15 years away. In the meantime, stark economic and health realities stifle stopgap solutions and stir urgency in cleaning the taps and rivers.<\/p>\n

Fewer than two people per square mile live on the Crow reservation. A water system to serve the reservation’s 7,000 members will need 750 miles of pipe. A recently finalized settlement\u2014the Crow Tribe-Montana Water Rights Compact\u2014earmarks $246 million for that municipal water system.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>It includes an additional $131 million for an irrigation project and $81 million for tribal administration of both systems. The compact, finalized in June, ended more than 35 years of acrimony and litigation over Crow water rights. It is seen by all sides\u2014federal, state and tribal governments\u2014as a turning point for public health, economic stability and tribal governance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe potential is great,” says Crow member Robert Old Horn, while looking out over the rodeo grounds at Crow Agency, a town of 1,800 that is the de facto capital of the reservation. Down the dirt track in the hot July sun six jockeys\u2014”warriors,” the announcer called them\u2014were at a full gallop on their bareback steeds, about to finish the first lap. The races and an earlier parade, plus speeches and prayers in Aps\u00e1alooke and English, were part of the tribe\u2019s \u201cWater is Life\u201d celebration marking the compact’s completion.<\/p>\n

“The (municipal) water system will provide good, clean treated water,\u201d Old Horn says. \u201cThat will be a blessing for all the homeowners.”<\/p>\n

Western water rights reclaimed<\/h5>\n

The water compact and new water system come at a crucial time for the Crow. The rivers and streams on the reservation are testing positive for harmful bacteria. Many people have uranium, manganese and other harmful metals coming out of the taps. There are health concerns on the Crow reservation\u2014children like Knaub\u2019s daughter getting sick, people with diabetes ingesting metals that attack the kidneys\u2014but also cultural threats. Bacteria-tainted springs, such as the revered Chief Plenty Coups spring, are used during traditional sun dances and fasting.<\/p>\n

The Crow are the latest tribe to tussle with the federal government over water rights. Between 1978 and 2014, Congress enacted 29 Native American water rights settlement acts, with four more approved by the Departments of Justice and the Interior.<\/p>\n

\"Crow<\/a>All but one of these settlements\u2014Florida’s Seminole Tribe is the exception\u2014have been in the western U.S., where water allocation has always proved most contentious.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t supposed to be so for tribes: an early-20th-century Supreme Court decision, Winters v. United States, determined Native American reservations had an implied water right to meet their needs and prohibited non-Indian users from interfering with such rights. But the decision was nebulous, didn\u2019t set water ownership amounts for each tribe, and was further neutered in 1963 when the Supreme Court interpreted the Winters ruling as meaning that tribes had rights to the water deemed necessary to irrigate their land.<\/p>\n

The modern-day settlements are a way for tribes, without going through lengthy, costly litigation, to finally right these wrongs and secure their water\u2014knowing how much they have and what\u2019s theirs to use\u2014and allows them to put the water to work, whether for drinking or through irrigation, sale or energy development.<\/p>\n

In testimony to Congress on Indian water rights in May 2015, Steven Moore, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, put current settlements into a historical perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the early and mid-1900s, the United States entered into a period of mass water infrastructure development in the arid West to stimulate the depressed economy and to accommodate population growth,\u201d Moore said. \u201cAlthough these projects affected tribal water rights, they were developed with little to no consideration or assertion of such rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such exclusionary water development left tribes wanting, says Moore, who represents tribes in navigating settlements, in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of settlements is negotiating and finding the often-attached federal funds for drinking water and irrigation infrastructure improvement. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the feds have spent more than $3.5 billion for Indian water rights settlements as of 2015.<\/p>\n

Two settlements are pending in Congress: 400 miles northwest of the Crow reservation, in East Glacier the Blackfeet reservation was under a boil water advisory for 18 years until they installed a $22 million water treatment system in 2012. The system benefitted from federal funding. But the tribe is still negotiating with the feds over their water rights. They\u2019ve been in and out of court for two decades trying to secure and protect their water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Blackfeet have waited the longest, and over the history of time the Blackfoot Nation has given up the most,\u201d Montana’s lone U.S. representative, Republican Ryan Zinke, said in a July statement when he introduced the Blackfeet Water Rights Settlement Act of 2016. \u201cIt\u2019s time to move forward with this water compact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second case awaiting congressional review affects the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in California. The tribe would get rights to up to 4,994 acre-feet of water a year as well as about $28 million in funds. An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons, enough to cover an acre a foot deep or leave an Olympic-sized swimming pool half full.<\/p>\n

\"Old<\/a>

Environmental Health News<\/p>

Robert Old Horn at the Water is Life festival in July.<\/p><\/div>\n

Momentum in many ways is with the tribes now. In a 2015 report on the state of Indian water rights settlements, Charles Stern, a specialist in natural resources policy for the Congressional Research Service, wrote, \u201clong-standing disputes over water rights and use involving Indian tribes likely will be an ongoing issue for Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore, the Native American Rights Fund attorney, says it\u2019s in the government\u2019s best interest to settle cases quickly as water storage and treatment costs built into agreements will only go up with delays.<\/p>\n

Beyond first water<\/h5>\n

On the Crow reservation, the new water treatment center and pipes will fix a haphazard system that leaves many residents reliant on untested and likely tainted water for drinking, cooking and washing.<\/p>\n

Many home wells appear to be drilled to what’s called \u201cfirst water,\u201d meaning the driller stops drilling once he hits water, says John Doyle, a tribal elder and water quality project director at Little Big Horn College. This is a problem: water at the top of the groundwater table is more likely to be contaminated with metals, farm overflow or septic waste. With wells costing about $20 to $30 per foot to drill in Montana, there is clear incentive to stop early.<\/p>\n

Doyle says they\u2019re finding most wells drilled 10 to 40 feet.<\/p>\n

Leonda Levchuk, a spokeswoman for Indian Health Services, says all wells drilled meet state and federal water standards or they are abandoned.<\/p>\n

However, a well may test clean one day and contaminated the next. And in the western United States, where it\u2019s drier, water moves more slowly through aquifers, says Joe Ayotte, chief of groundwater quality studies section for the U.S. Geological Survey.<\/p>\n

This leaves more opportunity for elements such as uranium and manganese to pollute the water, he says.<\/p>\n

The new system should fix this, but not everyone is optimistic. Doyle, for one, expresses concern over the new system\u2019s cost. \u201cWe have been told it would cost users $20 a month but their numbers don’t add up,\u201d says Doyle, who has not been involved with the planning. And costs matter here: per capita income on the reservation is roughly one third of the state\u2019s $23,000 average.<\/p>\n

There’s money in the compact to subsidize users the first few years of operation, with the hope that it becomes self-sustaining over time. Larry Blacksmith, director of the tribes water resource department, says the cost to users hasn\u2019t fully been determined.<\/p>\n

Moore knew of only one example where a settlement hit cost-related snags: the Animas-La Plata water settlement for the Ute Nation tribes in Colorado, in which the estimated costs for the new water storage system, completed in 2013, continued to escalate during construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat served as a lesson. The federal government and tribes have been more strategic since,\u201d Moore says.<\/p>\n

Regardless of cost, the project is expected to take at least another 10 years. That means people are still drinking bad water.<\/p>\n

\"Church\"<\/a>

Environmental Health News<\/p>

Economics can be difficult on the Crow Indian Reservation.<\/p><\/div>\n

Researchers testing the water have looked into providing at-home reverse osmosis water treatment systems but most families\u2014about two-thirds\u2014have elevated iron and would also need a water softener because their water is too hard for reverse osmosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time you\u2019re treating for all of those [iron, hardness, metals] it\u2019s a big chunk of money,\u201d says Mari Eggers, a research scientist at Montana State University. While reverse osmosis systems for an entire house run from $3,000 to $6,000, sink-mounted units can be had for a few hundred dollars.<\/p>\n

But even that is a stretch on the reservation for many families. Eggers, Doyle and others have been providing five-gallon water coolers to families with the worst pollution coming out of their taps. They\u2019ve passed out about 60 coolers so far, with families going to Crow Agency or other municipal water sources to purchase or fill the five gallon jugs for the coolers.<\/p>\n

Eggers says it\u2019s unclear how many people are on bottled water.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of families go buy cases of bottled water at Wal-Mart, or drive around with gallon plastic milk jugs and use that for drinking water,\u201d Eggers says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr shut their eyes and use it for cooking anyhow. [Water] is not always the most pressing issue they cope with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Britt Ehrhardt, a spokeswoman with the Indian Health Service, said in an emailed response that since 2014 the agency has provided wells and new water hookups to about 40 homes on the reservation.<\/p>\n

Economic and social struggles<\/h5>\n

The stress of not having clean water to drink or do your laundry comes on top of pervasive social, physical and economic hardships.<\/p>\n

A quarter of adults in Big Horn County say they don\u2019t get enough social and emotional support and 10 percent have depression, according to a survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than a third of homes in the county suffer from either inadequate plumbing, overcrowding or utility bill struggles.<\/p>\n

Forty three percent of children live in single-parent homes, a rate 50 percent higher than in the United States as a whole. Big Horn County\u2019s unemployment rate is more than 15 percent, dwarfing nearby Carbon County\u2019s 4.7 percent rate.<\/p>\n

Job options are few, says Emery Three Irons, a Crow member. He\u2019s from Crow Agency, which houses the new tribal hospital, Little Big Horn College, the tribe\u2019s natural resource department and casino.<\/p>\n

Three Irons is a proud Crow member, wearing his long black hair in a traditional tight braid that runs halfway down his back. He spends hours on a snowy March day weaving a truck around the sprawling reservation, pointing out the good\u2014like the preserved history at Chief Plenty Coups State Park and the picturesque rivers where anglers descend from all over the world\u2014and the bad, like the persistent unemployment and daily struggle for many of his neighbors and fellow Crow members.<\/p>\n

People shuffle in and out of the casino and gas station, but otherwise the town is quiet in late spring. Stray dogs scamper about and trash blows across the town and catches in the trees and porches. Children, fresh out of school, skip rocks through a garbage-strewn field in town where one horse grazes.<\/p>\n

More than a third of the 1,800 Crow Agency residents live in poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people work at the (Crow Agency) hospital, the senior center,\u201d Three Irons says, trailing off, at a loss for more examples. \u201cIt\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unemployment runs deeper than a lack of jobs. It cuts to the systemic racial inequities burdening tribes across the nation, something Latonna Old Elk, extension project director at Little Big Horn College, refers to as \u201chistorical trauma.\u201d Across the United States, unemployment for Native Americans is about 11 percent, double the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no economic infrastructure on the reservation, she says. And tourists \u201care too scared\u201d to stop on the reservation, fearing for their safety, she adds.<\/p>\n

Eric Birdinground, a legislative senator for the Crow Nation\u2019s Legislature, too, points to racial biases. \u201cIf I go to [nearby town] Hardin to get a loan, they may give me $1,000. They\u2019ll give a white farmer $200,000,\u201d Birdinground says.<\/p>\n

The tribe gets three-quarters of its budget and about 100 jobs from coal mining on the reservation, Birdinground says. Members receive a cut of the coal revenue but a weak market for the fossil fuel has some Crow worried.<\/p>\n

The effort to exploit those coal reserves became the focus of a rare fight between tribes earlier this year. The Crow, hoping to tap markets in Asia, sought to build a coal export terminal in northwest Washington state. But the Lummi and other tribes on the Pacific Northwest saw potential damage to historic fishing grounds. In May, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sided with the Lummi and denied a permit for the new terminal, killing the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not crisis mode yet,\u201d Three Irons says of the languishing coal markets. \u201cBut we\u2019re getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The water settlement offers hope: $20 million for energy development such as a hydropower dam and clean coal conversion.<\/p>\n

And there remains a pride and resiliency among those who are \u201cborn and raised\u201d here, like Three Irons, who spoke of sweat lodge sessions and arrow throw competitions, and shared pictures of when he was a featured Crow dancer two years ago at an annual powwow.<\/p>\n

Three Irons is a direct descendant of Chief Pretty Eagle, who was, by all accounts, a strong, stubborn chief and a counterweight to Chief Plenty Coups\u2019 willingness to work with the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

In late March, as a dense fog and blowing snow obscured the road, Three Irons weaved the truck slowly up snowy Big Horn Canyon, the four-wheel-drive chugging. As the clouds briefly parted, he pointed out Pretty Eagle Point, a sacred spot where the chief\u2019s remains lay. The point was barely visible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to make sure you saw it,\u201d Three Irons says.<\/p>\n

Youth, science and unity<\/h5>\n

With the water settlement behind them, the Crow community is now focusing on the next generation and attempting to instill the type of cultural pride that Three Irons has in order to strengthen the future caretakers of their legacy and water.<\/p>\n

While elders and university researchers are tackling the big, esoteric questions of water connectivity, on a cold, clear spring afternoon at Crow Agency Public School, fourth-grader Robert had a more simple inquiry: \u201cIf we don\u2019t have water, would we be like raisins?\u201d<\/p>\n

The bright 9-year old, wearing a sharp fedora (\u201clike Bruno Mars wears\u201d) and a SpongeBob Squarepants shirt that says \u201cAwesome,\u201d is part of the school\u2019s \u201cGuardians of the Living Water\u201d after-school program.<\/p>\n

Vanessa Simonds, assistant professor of community health at Montana State University who helps lead the program, steered him in the right direction. “No, but our organs wouldn\u2019t work right.”<\/p>\n

The program’s idea is simple: the future of the water is in the hands of the children. In the summer they test springs, visit rivers, learn about ecosystems. Today they\u2019re tracing each other\u2019s bodies, shading 60 percent of the outline blue, representing our bodies\u2019 water content.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at my legs, I look like The Flash!\u201d Robert says, pointing to his traced body.<\/p>\n

\"Bacteria\"<\/a>

Environmental Health News<\/p>

The Little Bighorn River flowing through the Crow Reservation has harmful bacteria in it.<\/p><\/div>\n

The hope is that children like Robert will not only learn the importance of clean water for their health and tribal traditions, but also spread the word to family and friends, Simonds says.<\/p>\n

Textbooks too often leave out the cultural relevance of water, says Crow Agency Public School principal Jason Cummins. \u201cThey go to the river. To the sacred springs. This addresses health needs here and now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the tribes that have been most successful in getting their voice heard in resource protection have used education, says Elizabeth Hoover, a Brown University assistant professor and researcher of environmental health and justice in native communities. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have people in your community with those science degrees, they [state and federal agencies] don\u2019t see you as qualified,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

One example, Hoover says, is the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in upstate New York. For years the tribe has dealt with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the St. Lawrence River and the state put fish advisories in effect that said not to eat most of the fish. \u201cFrom the state\u2019s point of view, less PCB exposure \u2026 there, we\u2019ve solved the problem,\u201d Hoover says.<\/p>\n

But such advisories don\u2019t take into account the cultural aspects. \u201cThe family relations around the culture of fishing, interactions with grandfather, tying nets, interactions on water, language being lost for specific words for color and textures,\u201d Hoover says.<\/p>\n

The tribe placed a premium on its members getting science degrees, bolstered its Environment Division, going from one person to a whole department. They helped write the latest fish consumption guidelines, taking into account tribal traditions of catching and eating fish, and created more nuanced rules.<\/p>\n

Similarly in Washington state, Coast Salish tribes have a sophisticated agency\u2014the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission\u2014that shares an equal partnership with the state in making management decisions about Salish Sea salmon and other fisheries.<\/p>\n

In uniting around salmon, and integrating Western science into their fight for resource rights, Coast Salish tribes have become a major player in Salish Sea policymaking and protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years it was fragmented jurisdictions, departments of water, departments of land, and, by fragmenting, state and federal agencies were losing the bigger context,\u201d says Emma Norman, chair of the science department and Native environmental science program at Northwest Indian College in Washington state. \u201cWhen the Coast Salish tribes came together they brought out the relationship to land, to the family, to ancestors, your unborn, future generations to the decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Crow are trying to follow the same path. Knaub, as a greenhouse assistant, is trying to reconnect children and the broader tribal community to healthy, locally grown foods.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of kids don\u2019t know why we live the way we do,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe if they did, the healing could begin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three Irons has been interning with Doyle and recently got accepted to graduate school at Montana State University. The challenge will be for him and others to instill and honor the reverence for water as a living thing, responsible for their existence, while having honest discussions about some of the problems the reservation faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople probably are more aware now of water issues then they\u2019ve ever been,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us took it for granted\u2014if it came out of the tap or came down the stream it was clean, good and safe. Now we know that\u2019s not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This story is part of “Sacred Water,” Environmental Health New’s ongoing investigation into Native American struggles\u2014and successes\u2014to protect culturally significant water sources on and off the reservation. Read Part 1: Tainted water imperils health, traditions for Montana tribe CROW RESERVATION\u2014 Alisara Knaub saw firsthand how contaminated water can upend your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":13846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[4880,4872,4878,1719,4730,628,4879],"class_list":["post-13843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-congressional-research-service","tag-crow-nation","tag-environmental-health-news","tag-little-big-horn-college","tag-robert-old-horn","tag-ryan-zinke","tag-water-rights-compact","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}