Because most tribal land is held in trust, and technically owned by the federal government, development on many tribal lands is fraught with complications.
“You have to jump through so many hoops in order for development to occur. We have to get the Bureau of Indian Affairs on board, Department of Interior, the White House,” he said.
“In order for us to build a highway here, a paved road, it takes $2 million to $3 million to pave one mile of road here,” he said. “And it’s because we can’t even use the material on our land, our rock, our soil, to build and create a paved road. We have to import that off the Navajo Nation.”
Nez conceded that tribal law also severely restricts infrastructure development on the reservation, but he also said there are concrete federal regulations that can and should be waived to allow for construction. In early June, the tribal government sent a white paper to the White House that proposes waiving certain federal regulations so the tribe can fast-track development projects. So far, Nez said, they have not heard a response.
“Now is the time to change these regulations and policy. The window is open. Let’s take advantage of that,” he added.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said the letter from Nez has been shared with the “relevant agencies” and some of the recommendations have already been addressed.
“We continue to review the other recommendations and appreciate this sort of feedback as we continue to identify ways to put people over paperwork and improve our nation’s infrastructure,” Deere said.
U.S. Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D-Ariz., has introduced a bill to extend the spending deadline for tribal governments to Dec. 30, 2022, a move Nez said would help.
But some locals without running water told NBC News they doubt anything will really change.
“I think we’re abandoned, pretty much,” said Katherine Paymella, a traditional weaver.
Paymella, 59, lives on a homestead in Black Rock, Arizona, so remote that when the access road is muddy, she said it takes about two hours to drive to the nearest convenience store. She said she got electricity about a decade ago, but after years of attending fruitless community meetings, she’s given up hope on ever getting running water.
Katherine Paymella, 59, lives in a home with no running water in Black Rock, Ariz. Paymella said her home was hooked up with electricity about a decade ago, but she has begun to lose hope that she will ever receive running water. (Nina Mayer Ritchie)
Katherine Paymella, 59, lives in a home with no running water in Black Rock, Ariz. Paymella said her home was hooked up with electricity about a decade ago, but she has begun to lose hope that she will ever receive running water. (Nina Mayer Ritchie)
In the meantime, the human toll of COVID-19 builds.
Jeneda Benally lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, just outside the reservation’s recognized borders but within what’s considered ancestral Navajo land.
She’s already lost multiple relatives to COVID-19, and she is determined not to lose her father, Jones Benally, a traditional medicine man and hoop dancer. Jones, who is in his 90s, has traveled the world showcasing Navajo culture and was one of the first traditional medicine men to work at a Western medical facility. His daughter calls him an “Arizona living treasure.”
Benally and her brother Clayson make up the Navajo rock band Sihasin and are drawing on lessons of resilience left behind by their grandmother, who survived the 1918 Spanish flu.
The siblings have spent their quarantine devising ways to pass down the oral traditions that are at risk of being lost every time a Navajo elder dies, making YouTube videos where they share traditional sheep-shearing tips and explaining the medicinal properties of plants in the area.
Sometimes, Benally said, it feels like an uphill battle.
“Right now, people are dying because whether or not they’ve lost a loved one to the pandemic, they have also lost what was normal to them,” Benally said.
“COVID-19 has opened the world’s eyes to the conditions that Indigenous peoples in America, in the United States, face and have faced for so long,” Benally said.
She’s hopeful that all the attention on what they’ve lost will open doors for positive change.
“We need systems that invest in our people, that are not Band-Aid solutions but really, truly invest in the strength and the resilience of our people,” Benally said. “We don’t ever want to go back to what the normal was for Indigenous peoples on the Navajo Nation. We have to do better.”
