The Wind River diversion dam in Wyoming was built to divert water to mainly non-Native American irrigators on the Wind River reservation. Many Shoshone and Arapaho tribal members fear the complete loss of their fishery because of depleted waters. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

FORT WASHAKIE, Wyo. – Jason Baldes stands next to a bridge facing the Wind River diversion dam, a concrete reminder that his Eastern Shoshone tribe does not have the right to use the water on their lands as they want.

Instead, dams and diversions move water toward the many farms in the region, leaving the Wind River depleted to the point that it sometimes runs dry. In what became one of Wyoming’s longest running court battles, known as the Big Horn cases, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that allocating water to benefit fish and wildlife and recharge groundwater was not considered a beneficial use.

“This is an environmental justice issue,” said Baldes, a member of the Shoshone tribe who still takes issue with the court’s decision. “It’s as though the tribes don’t exist when it comes to using water for our purposes.” The Eastern Shoshone tribe’s code lists 15 beneficial uses of water, including fisheries and culture.

In the final 1992 decision, the courts upheld the state of Wyoming’s right to administer Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho water rights, which they had secured in previous court cases, and the tribes’ traditional use of the river as a fishery was barred.

In 1905, farmers were offered land on Native American reservations to encourage agricultural development. The federal government built a massive network of irrigation districts, canals and dams.

“The tribes were hunters and gatherers, fishermen,” said Richard Baldes, who served with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service for decades and continues to sit on the tribal water board. “If you don’t have enough water in the river, then fishing isn’t any good. And that’s exactly what’s happened as a result of the Bureau of Reclamation building the diversion dam on the Wind River.”

Wind River tribes faced decades long legal battles over water rights from News21 on Vimeo.

Hydrological maps of the region show a stark divide between portions of the reservation dried from the diversions and portions of the reservation fed from the diversions – one side brown, one side green. The green areas are the most concentrated with private land ownership.

Upstream from the dams, fish are healthy. Downstream, there are almost no fish. Sediment deposits are making the area around the dam uninhabitable, and fish are blocked from moving upstream, save for a “largely ineffective” fish ladder designed to help fish get past the dam, according to recent research by Kelli Blomberg out of the University of Wyoming.

Climate change coupled with heavy demands on water for oil and gas industry and agriculture activities are stressing supplies. In an economic study funded by the Wyoming Water Development Commission, Edward Barbier notes that “persistence of drought conditions over much or all of the state of Wyoming in recent years has raised concern as to whether water availability relative to use may be limiting economic growth.” He notes that oil drillers are reportedly striking deals with farmers for use of their irrigation water.

Jason Baldes, A member of the Shoshone Nation in Wyoming, is teaching is sons to hunt and fish. He hopes they will pass on the same to their own children. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

At certain times of the year, portions of the Wind River run dry. Past shortages have even caused skirmishes among farmers in the region, according to reports by WyoFile.

“Time and time again, when you look at the history of water for Native Americans, you have to look at the social, political issues that stand in the way of how tribes progress,” said Yufna Soldier Wolf, an Arapaho tribal member.

Paul Robinson is a research director at the Southwest Research and Information Center. “Often Indian water issues are secondary to other water concerns of the states,” he said. “Tribes get water when there is infrastructure for other people getting their needs met.”

He pointed to the management of the Colorado River as an example, where major diversions from northern Arizona and eastern New Mexico to serve urban centers have limited Native Americans’ access to water.

“The trail of tears over Indian water is one where first water users don’t always get control over that right,” he said.

What frustrates Baldes most is that, properly managed, there’s enough water for everyone. His ancestors chose the headwaters of the Missouri River as their home for its wealth of resources, and there should be plenty to go around, he said. He added that the one year that the tribes were able to run instream flow was a drought year, and farmers still had bumper crops.

“We know that the ranchers and farmers need water for their crops. But we also know that fish need water to survive,” he said.

“I believe that the two can co-exist.”

Jason Baldes of Fort Washakie, Wyoming, has many friends who are farmers and has nothing against the industry. He said he wants to see water on the reservation used for both farming and the protection of the fishery. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com.

The post Wyoming Wind River tribes want water on their territory to run strong, but they don’t control it appeared first on Troubled Water.

Jeff and Rhonda Locker tour their old farm property in Pavillion, Wyoming. The home now has a cistern and underground tank with clean water because the well is contaminated with benzenes and other substances, which the couple believes is from the oil and gas activities on their land. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

PAVILLION, Wyo. – Rhonda and Jeff Locker enjoyed hosting friends and family at their farm home in Pavillion, Wyoming. The 56 year old said she took pride in serving her guests water from the well on their land.

“It was the best I’d ever tasted,” Rhonda Locker said.

That changed in the early 1990s when the couple began to suspect something was wrong with their water. It would intermittently run black and release a strange odor, they said.

The Lockers were not alone. Similar complaints came from other residents near Pavillion – a town with little more than a couple hundred residents and an oil field.

Decades later, officials still can’t definitively identify the source of the contamination.

The Lockers, however, believe they know who is responsible. They are taking an oil and gas giant to court, claiming the company polluted their water and lied to them about it. They are seeking compensation after Rhonda Locker became ill.

In 2014, the couple filed suit against Encana Corp. for negligence, and the couple claimed the company convinced them to drink unsafe water and did not communicate water problems with them, according to court documents. The case is ongoing in U.S. District Court.

Encana officials deny any wrongdoing.

Couple tries to identify cause of mystery illness

The Lockers’ brown farmhouse sits between tall apple trees and has a view of the Rocky Mountains. Pavillion residents have learned to coexist with the dozens of gas wells on their hay and barley fields.

When the couple noticed changes in their water, they contacted Tom Brown Inc., a company that built and operated gas wells on their land. The company sent a hydrologist to test the Lockers’ wells.

The company assured them the contamination was not from their oil and gas activities, and there were no petroleum by-products in their water – and the Lockers believed them, they said. Tom Brown Inc. paid for a reverse osmosis water filtration unit for the home. In exchange, the couple signed an agreement releasing the company of any future liability.

“We wanted to believe them,” Rhonda Locker said. “I so badly wanted water to drink out of the faucet again. It was no fun to always bring jugs of water home, always having them on the laundry, on the washer machine – everywhere. And our house wasn’t that big, so It just got to me.”

Jeff Locker and his son still did not drink the water because they did not like the taste of it, but Rhonda Locker did.

“I just wanted to be able to take my vitamins and brush my teeth out of my own bathroom sink,” she said.

Four months after installing the filtration system, Rhonda Locker became ill. Her arms and legs tingled, she could not think clearly and she struggled to walk.

The couple became determined to find answers.

Rhonda Locker sought out numerous doctors, none of whom could give her a clear diagnosis for her mystery illness.

It was her declining health that lead the couple to file suit against Encana, the company that bought Tom Brown Inc.

Wyoming couple’s water problems launch national debate about oil and gas drilling from News21 on Vimeo.

EPA study suggests connection

The Environmental Protection Agency began an investigation into Pavillion groundwater in 2009, and it released a draft of its conclusions in 2011, pointing to the oil and gas industry as a possible culprit for the contamination.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry informed the couple their groundwater showed signs of contamination in 2010 and suggested the couple use an alternate water supply. This was the first time the Lockers were informed of specific contamination in their water since the problem began in 1992, they said.

It was not the first time someone knew of the contamination, however. According to court documents, Tom Brown Inc. tested the Lockers’ well in 2001 and found toluene – a harmful solvent oil and gas companies use that can cause “central nervous system depression and decreased memory,” according to World of Chemicals.

The EPA’s report confirmed Pavillion groundwater was contaminated with benzene, methane and other petroleum by-products. The lead author of the report said the contamination was most likely due to leakage from unlined pits carrying oil and gas wastewater.

Encana refutes the draft study, arguing that it was flawed science. They deny the chemicals in the Lockers’ well came from their activities, citing a number of other possible sources, in their official response to the EPA findings.

The company declined to comment on the court case since it is ongoing.

The well at the Locker family home near Pavillion, Wyoming, is contaminated with benzenes and other chemicals. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

EPA’s study causes scrutiny

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., in a statement called the EPA’s draft study part of the agency’s “witch hunt” aimed at harming the oil and gas industry.

“The Obama Administration has done everything it possibly can to destroy domestic production of oil, gas and coal,” Inhofe told the Senate floor in 2012.

The issue has become part of a national debate over the potential effects of hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry.

The industry is a boon to Wyoming, which is one of the top 10 oil and gas producers in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal, crude oil and natural gas are produced in all but one of the state’s counties.

While the EPA said it “stands behind its work and its data” in a 2013 news release, the agency handed over the groundwater investigation to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. Encana donated $1.5 million to the Wyoming Natural Resource Foundation for the state to fund the investigation and for a groundwater education campaign, according to the same release.

The state released a report in 2015 “discrediting” the EPA’s earlier report, according to a statement from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The state’s report contended hydraulic fracturing had most likely not impacted the water supply.

The state of Wyoming did not return requests for comment.

Senior officials at the EPA had decided not to finalize the draft and hand the investigation over to Wyoming because of the “intense pressure from the oil and gas industry and the state of Wyoming,” said Dominic DiGiulio, the lead author of the EPA’s initial study.

“The findings affect hydraulic fracturing across the country,” said DiGuilio, a researcher at Stanford University. “That’s why the oil and gas industry was very defensive about the findings out there.”

DiGuilio released results from an independent, peer-reviewed investigation with Stanford University in 2016. It also concluded that the water contamination was due to the industry’s disposal of fracking waste into unlined pits.

In 2016, the EPA released a comprehensive national report that didn’t offer a conclusive answer to whether hydraulic fracturing effects water, and it suggested more testing.

Rhonda and Jeff Locker said they are happy they live in a new home with safe water in the Pavillion area of Wyoming. They are tangled in a legal battle over the source of contamination, which they believe came from oil and gas activity on their farm. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

Couple still has unanswered questions

As Rhonda and Jeff Locker sit on the back porch on a warm summer evening, they still want answers.

The know there was something wrong with the water. In fact, the state of Wyoming started giving cisterns to residents with contaminated water in 2012. They just haven’t proven what caused it.

Without her medication, Rhonda Locker can’t walk properly. Her cognitive problems are becoming more severe. She feels much older than she should in her 50s, she said.

“It’s always, ‘Don’t hurt grandma, watch her legs,’ and stuff like that,” she said. “I did picture how much I was going to run around with them and do all these things with them because I was so active, and it didn’t happen that way.”

“In retrospect, if there’s anything I could change and go back,” Jeff Locker said. “I’d just soon not ever have heard the name Encana and Tom Brown.”

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

The post Wyoming couple’s well water problems launch national debate about effects of oil and gas drilling appeared first on Troubled Water.

Darlene Arviso, a member of the Navajo Nation, drives a diesel truck with a big tank to dozens of rural homes near Thoreau, New Mexico, every day. Navajo families depend on her for clean drinking water because much of the groundwater in their wells is contaminated with uranium from Cold War-era mines. Reporter Lauren Kaljur takes us there.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

Water is scarce in the Navajo Nation, but contamination from decades of poorly managed uranium extraction in the territory has made matters more difficult. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

Cisterns near Thoreau, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation pump fresh water up from underground storage tanks installed by the St. Bonaventure Mission and a nonprofit called Digdeep. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

Darlene Arviso, a member of the Navajo Nation, fills up a cistern with fresh water for residents near Thoreau, New Mexico. The groundwater in their wells is contaminated with uranium from Cold War-era mines on Navajo territory. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

The St. Bonaventure Mission helps provide clean water to rural Navajo community members because the tribe cannot afford to get everyone on its centralized water system. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

Many Navajo families do not have running water because infrastructure is expensive in remote rural areas. Since water is contaminated with uranium, it has to be moved long distances. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

Darlene Arviso has her commercial driver’s license. To run the water truck, she has to climb up the ladder and connect the hose to the outdoor water storage tank at the St. Bonaventure Mission, which helps fund the project. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

The post Episode 3: Water truck serves Navajo Nation residents appeared first on Troubled Water.