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.

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Nancy Colas is a small business owner from Newburgh, New York. She and her family tested above the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum level for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid last year. (Photo by Elissa Nuñez/News21)

NEWBURGH, N.Y. – When Newburgh’s city manager declared a state of emergency last year after tests found dangerous levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid in the city’s water supply, Nancy Colas scheduled blood tests for everyone in her family.

“My 17-year-old, he pretty much grew up here, and he’s been drinking that water all his life,”  she said.

The Colas family tested well above the the maximum level allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. PFOS, a dangerous chemical found in firefighting foam, has been linked to cancer and other medical problems.

“There are effects that I wonder how it’s going to affect us down the line,” Colas said. “Cognitively, are my children going to be OK as they get older?”

Newburgh, a poor city filled with black and Latino residents, is one of many communities of color whose water has been contaminated by nearby Superfund or hazardous waste sites. In this case, the Stewart Air National Guard Base leaked PFOS into the town’s lakes and reservoirs.

Colas, like a growing number of Newburgh residents, is suing the city of Newburgh for negligence, contending that city officials were long aware of the problem before they declared a state of emergency, putting residents at greater risk of illness.

“It hurts to know that they knew, and they didn’t say anything,” she said. “I’m sure there are people that knew.”

And much like other Newburgh residents, Colas also thinks that had she lived in a different town or been born a different race, she would’ve never been exposed to PFOS.

“It is an environmental justice issue because if we were sitting in Deer Park, Long Island, I don’t think it would have ever been an issue,” Colas said. “I don’t think there would have been contamination, period. Because someone would have said ‘not in my backyard.’”

The Hudson River runs alongside the city of Newburgh. (Photo by Elissa Nuñez/News21)––≠

Many residents, including city officials, said the Department of Defense would be more motivated to clean up the Superfund site if Newburgh were a whiter, more affluent town.

“It certainly feels like that might be part of it, because why are they ignoring us?” said Genie Abrams, a Newburgh City Council member. “Are they ignoring other communities, the wealthier communities, the whiter communities?

Some residents said town meetings meant to update residents are poorly publicized. Many still haven’t been blood tested, specifically in the Spanish-speaking community. The city government has posted materials in both Spanish and Creole on its website, but community activists said it’s not enough.

“For this level of danger, there should be letters being sent out to every single home periodically to update, and that’s not happening in English and Spanish,” said Kevindaryan Lujan, a Newburgh resident. “So this is an issue the community is concerned about. And there’s whole bulks of the community that are unaware of what’s going on.”

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is working to complete a multimillion dollar filtration plant to treat Newburgh’s poisoned water by October. State officials and environmental experts are pressing the Department of Defense to clean up contamination at the Superfund site.

“The federal and the state government have really been passing the buck to each other on this issue, no one really wants to take care of it,” Lujan said. “It’s kind of being put under the rug, and people are still scared.”

Newburgh will return to its original water supply in the fall when the filtration plant is fully constructed. “We need to have clean water here, it’s a basic human right for anyone, no matter what your income level is,” Abrams said.

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

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One neighborhood at the edge of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was left off the grid for decades as municipal water systems expanded around them. The Robert Eubanks community, a historically African American neighborhood, had to rely on private wells, which were often contaminated. They watched – and waited – as the white neighborhoods around them hooked up to city water systems, which residents felt provided cleaner, safer water.

Residents and scholars said race may have played a role in the community’s lack of access to the city water. Reporter Bryn Caswell takes us to the community.

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

 

Robert Campbell stands at the edge of the forest in his North Carolina community. (Photo by Fionnuala O’Leary/News21)

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The former Carver Terrace sits vacant in Texarkana, Texas. (Photo by William Taylor Potter/News21)

PHOENIX – Patsy Oliver wanted the white picket fence dream, so the single mother jumped at the chance to to move to the Carver Terrace subdivision in Texarkana, Texas, where she could have a yard and garden.

“It was an affluent, black neighborhood. Everybody wanted to live in Carver Terrace,” said Bess Gamble-Williams, Oliver’s daughter who grew up in Carver Terrace. “When the deaths and the sicknesses started … we could not understand it.”

Carver Terrace was built on the former property of Koppers Co. Inc., which used creosote and other potentially dangerous chemicals to treat wood for railroad ties. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, creosote is a “probable carcinogen” and exposure can lead to lung, stomach, skin, kidney and liver problems.

Koppers stopped production in 1961 and sold 34 acres of the property to Carver Terrace Inc., in 1964. Later, the EPA found several heavy metals in groundwater, according to Catherine Howard, the dean of science, technology, engineering and mathematics at Texarkana College. Some samples had dangerous levels of arsenic, iron, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc.

The former Carver Terrace sits vacant in Texarkana, Texas. (Photo by William Taylor Potter/News21)

In 1984, the land was designated as a Superfund Site, and in 1993, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the buyout and relocation of affected residents, according to the EPA. The Superfund program is designed to clean up some of the nation’s most contaminated lands.

Oliver quickly became one of the community’s outspoken critics.

Decades after her mother’s fight, Gamble-Williams started working with high school students to spread Oliver’s message of “environmental racism” to a new generation of Texarkana residents. Their tribute to Oliver’s work is a 12-minute documentary, “Poison in the Pipes,” featuring Carver Terrace and Gamble-Williams speaking on Oliver’s work.

“After we aired it, several people stood up and gave their own testimony,” said Cailey Robinson, one of the students who produced the documentary, which debuted in July. “People were crying. It was a really beautiful moment.”

The demolition of Carver Terrace began Dec. 16, 1993 – the same day Oliver died. Odin Contreras, another member of the documentary team, said visiting the vacant site was a haunting part of the experience.

“Seeing all the markers and the concrete, and knowing that these people used to live here and the protests and all the awful things going on, I got a little emotional,” Contreras said. “They were dying because they wanted to live better lives.”

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

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

Robert Miranda is a representative for Freshwater Action for Life Coalition. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/News21)

Vonnie Williams became aware of the symptoms of lead poisoning after taking custody of her nephew, who had been poisoned. Once her oldest daughter began to display behavioral issues, she became concerned. She later learned her daughter’s school tested positive for lead. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/News21)

The post Episode 4: Lead problems in Milwaukee appeared first on Troubled Water.

Janet McMahan shows documentail that detail water pollution in southeast Georgia. (Photo by Brandon Kitchin/News21)

WAYCROSS, Ga. – Janet McMahan has a message for southeast Georgia, and it is the one printed on her T-shirt: “No cure until you stop the cause, test your water, get a filter.”

In 2014, McMahan became committed to improving water quality after she lost her 28-year-old son to a rare form of cancer she believes he got from drinking contaminated water.

“I started to get the health department to warn people to test their water, (but) they said they were not allowed to tell people to test the water,” said McMahan, who lives in Ocilla, Georgia.

She said she believes government neglect and lack of awareness contributed to health problems in her family. McMahan, her son Ben and her two Labrador retrievers were all diagnosed with cancer in 2009. After the four rare cancer diagnoses, McMahan felt confident she knew the cause: the water they were drinking.

She had read an article about Bangladesh, where millions of people were being exposed to arsenic in their drinking water from wells. McMahan and her family also depend on well water.

When she had her well water tested, it showed negligible levels of arsenic, she said. However, she said her water heater had toxic levels of the cancer-causing chemical in it. She said she later found unsafe levels of lead and radon as well.

Arsenic is a known human carcinogen associated with skin, lung and bladder cancer, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. It also has been connected with kidney and liver cancer.

The U.S. government has limits on how much arsenic is allowed in drinking water. The maximum level of inorganic arsenic permitted is 10 parts per billion. While public water systems are frequently tested for it, there are no regulations that mandate testing of water from private wells.

“All they had to do was tell us there was arsenic in the water, and we would have bought a filter … and my son would still be here,” she said.

After she lost her son, she became active in the community and told people to get their water tested. Her efforts have been praised by well-known environmental advocate Erin Brockovich and have earned McMahan the nickname, “The Georgia Water Lady.”

Janet McMahan McMahan became committed to improving water quality after she lost her 28-year-old son to a rare form of cancer she believes he got from drinking contaminated water.
(Photo courtesy of Janet McMahan)

“I’m doing this for Ben because I could not keep him alive,” she said. “This way, I’m keeping him alive. I’m doing this in his memory. He deserved better.”

She recently helped residents of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where some people voiced concerns that pesticides in the water could be causing brain cancers.

For several years, she has worked closely with the environmental activist group Silent Disaster of Waycross, Georgia. Members believe local industries have polluted waterways, which have resulted in increased rates of childhood cancer and caused other diseases.

“These people need to know what they’ve been exposed to,” she said.

McMahan and her husband Howard McMahan, a family physician, have used their platform in the medical community to alert patients, other professionals and politicians that water contamination can cause cancer and other illness.

The couple has met with top National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences officials in Washington, D.C., and U.S. Rep. Austin Scott to express concerns on a national level.

McMahan’s ultimate goal is to raise awareness about water contamination to prevent any more unnecessary death.

“Ben didn’t have to die – that it was greed that put him 6 feet under. It was politicians that put him 6 feet under,” she said. “It was not knowing, doctors not knowing, people not knowing, that the water was causing cancer is what put him 6 feet under. And if he could do anything about it, he would have. He helped everybody. He was just loved by everybody, especially me.”

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

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Francisco Tavira, 62, earns $12 an hour at Sierra Sun Landscaping in Tempe, Arizona. He spends about $20 a month to refill his water bottles. (Photo by Andrea Jaramillo/News21)

PHOENIX – Dolores Escobar takes a 30-minute bus ride every Sunday from her house to the closest water-vending machine and carries eight empty gallon jugs with her to refill them.

During hot seasons, she travels twice a week. She spends nearly $50 a month on the water, plus her bus tickets. The Phoenix resident said she didn’t like the taste of the tap water at her home, which she said has as a “metallic taste.”

Numerous studies have found that Latinos’ consumption of tap water is significantly lower than non-Latinos’ consumption in places with predominant or growing Latino populations such as Northern California, Denver, Salt Lake City and Milwaukee.

These studies indicate that many Latinos believe their water is unsafe, don’t like the taste or the odor, or repeat the cultural patterns from their home countries, where tap water isn’t safe to drink.

Watermill Express was founded in Brighton, Colorado, and is one of many self-serve drinking water companies in the country. Its main locations are in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Illinois and Colorado. (Photo by Andrea Jaramillo/News21)

Paloma Beamer, a researcher at the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, led one of those studies in Nogales, Arizona. Beamer said nearly 80 percent of the 90 Latino residents surveyed didn’t drink tap water, and most of them thought it was as unsafe as drinking and driving and more unsafe than smoking. They relied on bottled water and water-vending machines.

Latinos in Tucson responded similarly. According to the 2013 American Housing Survey, Latinos were more likely than whites and African Americans to distrust their tap water and buy bottled water to replace it.

Dulce Estrada, who works at a Ranch Market in Phoenix, said she doesn’t drink or cook with tap water because she heard “the pipes are damaged” and because she never drank tap water when she lived in Mexico.

Phoenix residents Dora Godinez (left) and her daughter Diana Garcia refill their 5-gallon water jug every week because they don’t trust their tap water. (Photo by Andrea Jaramillo/News21)

Beamer’s research indicated that 73 percent of the people surveyed said they would drink the tap water if they knew it was safe – even if they didn’t like the taste.

Beamer’s team also did water-quality tests during their home visits in Nogales and found no significant difference between the tap water and the bottled or vended water Latino residents drank, except in cases where they found water stored in reusable containers that weren’t properly cleaned.

Although Beamer’s water samples came out clean, water contamination poses a problem in many other predominantly Latino communities.

For example, small-water systems that serve larger shares of Latinos in California are more likely to have higher levels of nitrate contamination than those serving larger shares of white residents, a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found.

Not only that, Latinos are more likely to live in states with higher water-system violations reported to the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a national sample study led by Vanderbilt University’s economist William Viscusi.

Phoenix resident Diana Garcia fills water jugs to take them home. (Photo by Andrea Jaramillo/News21)

Latinos reported more pipe leakage problems than whites, although less than African Americans and Native Americans, according to the 2015 American Housing Survey. Leaky water pipes can be a sign of corrosion or deterioration, which affects water quality.

Latinos also spend more money in bottled water. Viscusi’s study found that Latino households spend $2.17 more a month than non-Latinos, yet their median income is 24 percent below the national average.

But the concern isn’t just financial. Beamer said that not drinking tap water increases Latinos’ risk of developing diabetes because they tend to consume sugary drinks instead of water.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Latinos are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than whites.

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

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Tory Lowe has always been a community advocate in Milwaukee. The city has antiquated infrastructure with more than 70,000 suspected lead service lines that need replacement. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/News21)

MILWAUKEE – When Milwaukee native Tory Lowe found out about the lead service lines running through Milwaukee, he took a different approach to help spread the word that the water is unsafe to consume.

Along with producer Godzilla and rapper Eric “EP” Perkins, they formed The Midwest Connect and wrote a song titled “Don’t Drink the Water.”

The song describes the problem: “Poison coming through the sink, but it seems like nobody cares. Thousands of kids jacked for life cuz they don’t want to stop and fix the pipes.”

The lead lines are especially prevalent in the south side and the north side of Milwaukee, a predominantly African American part of the city, according to a list on Milwaukee’s water department website.

Lowe does advocacy work to help those in need. He uses his Facebook page, where he has amassed more than 30,000 followers, to spread awareness when a kidnapping or murder happens. He also goes live on Facebook during protests or community events, such as the start of a summer basketball league.

Milwaukee has about 70,000 lead service lines that lead to homes, and the city began an initiative to spend $3.4 million to replace lines that serve schools and daycare centers in 2017.

But when it come to the lines that service homes, the city will only replace pipes if they leak or they present some sort of emergency, said Robert Miranda, a representative for the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition.

Longtime friends Tory Lowe and music producer Godzilla help to bring awareness to Milwaukee’s lead crisis through music. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/News21)

Going forward, the city plans to spend another $3.4 million to replace 300 lines to service homes. Based on the current replacement plan, it will take more than 233 years to transition the city’s lead pipes to copper.

Lowe and The Midwest Connect said they chose to spread the word about the lead pipes through music because it was the best way to reach a wider audience. The community has embraced the song by liking the group’s Facebook page and sharing the song.

The post Milwaukee native uses music to spread awareness about city’s water problem 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.

Maritza Lopez, 54, has dealt with severe health issues her entire life. She lives near a Superfund site in East Chicago. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/News21)

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. – Growing up in the Calumet neighborhood of East Chicago, Maritza Lopez, 54, has experienced a significant number of health issues that she believes have been a result of living in a city that has lead-contaminated drinking water. She said she lives in “ground zero.”

East Chicago is populated with mostly low-income black and Latino residents. It has been described as one of the most industrial cities in the United States, surrounded by companies such as Delaware-based chemical company DuPont and BP’s Whiting Refinery.

The Environmental Protection Agency declared the West Calumet Housing Complex a federal Superfund site after finding high levels of lead in the soil over several years. In December 2016, the EPA also found elevated levels of lead in the drinking water in the homes there.

The EPA has temporarily relocated residents while it begins cleanup of the contamination.

Lopez started noticing her health declining drastically when she was 10 years old: She started hemorrhaging out of her nose and mouth. At 12, her doctors said she had severe arthritis throughout her body. In her 20s, she began having heart palpitations and chest pains. By 33, she had worked through two sets of dentures. And between the ages of 33 and 38, Lopez was averaging two to three major surgeries a year.

“My body made tumors,” she told News21. “I had a tumor that just blew up overnight. … It was closing off my breathing.”

“I ended up having a heavy metals test done, and they found mostly lead, arsenic and cadmium in my system.”

The West Calumet Housing Complex was built on a former lead refinery, which for years contaminated the soil and water in the area. The housing complex is a Superfund site, and it was listed on the National Priorities List of worst-contaminated sites in the country in 2009. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/News21)

Lopez helped to form the Community Advisory Group for the Calumet area after the West Calumet Housing Complex was declared a Superfund site in 2009. The EPA funds the group, and it meets weekly to help inform residents in the surrounding neighborhoods about the contaminated soil and drinking water and what steps they can plan to move forward.

Lopez and state Sen. Lonnie Randolph said the EPA and the city of East Chicago are not doing enough to address the contaminated drinking water.

“I don’t think they really understand and appreciate the seriousness of the situation, and it is a very serious situation,” Randolph said.

Lopez said the EPA has failed to test for other contaminants such as arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chemicals that naturally occur in coal.

Lopez is still fighting an ongoing battle with her health. She said her heart stops when it wants. She is anemic, and she suffers from severe headaches.

“I’m standing here by the grace of God and realize it’s to fight this and to be vocal,” she said. “And it’s not really standing, it’s sitting here in my recliner.”

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

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