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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Kip Sauve, 59, stands in front of his cabin holding one of the notices he was given not to drink his water. He lives in the Kontree Apartments in Lynden, Wash. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

LYNDEN, Wash. – Kip Sauve has lived at the Kontree Apartments in Lynden, Washington, for two years. He won’t drink the water from the tap. And he won’t let his pet cat and bird drink it, either.

For more than a year, the residents of the complex have periodically received “do not drink” advisories  after authorities found excessive levels of the pesticide dinoseb and nitrates in their community’s well water.

Still, Sauve enjoys the small garden in his backyard: “I got peas, beans, radishes, corn, lettuce, sweet lettuce, beans, peas, carrots. I got potatoes.”

The area is known for its crops, especially its blueberry, raspberry and strawberry farms. The farming may have contributed to the water issues facing Sauve’s small community.

The EPA banned dinoseb, an herbicide widely used to control weeds, in 1986. However, it’s an example of legacy contamination, a term used to describe pollution from the past that still lingers in the environment today. It’s often difficult, expensive or sometimes impossible to clean up the contamination.

That means the residents of the Kontree Apartments – and others across the nation who must deal with legacy contaminants – often have few options when trying to clean up their water.

The apartments are a cluster of old migrant worker quarters marketed as cabins. Sauve said when he first moved to the community, he began having abdominal pains after drinking coffee in the morning at a friend’s house.

“I said, ‘What the hell?’” Sauve said. “And he told me, ‘Yeah, it’s the water.’ So ever since that I buy my own water.”

Though Sauve can’t drive, he said he makes his way to the store to buy at least 15 gallon jugs of water each month. He wishes he could live somewhere else, but he can’t afford to because he lives off disability checks.

Christina Hayden lives at Kontree Apartments, but she didn’t know about the “do not drink” alert posted by the Washington State Department of Health. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

Resident Christina Hayden said she was never informed of the contamination.

Hayden moved to Kontree in April 2017. She said she’s friends with 19 residents who live there, and no one trusts the water.

Derek Pell, a planning and engineering manager for the Washington Department of Health’s Northwest Office of Drinking Water, said the contamination is likely the result of a spill that still manifests in the water supply. He said that while the levels have gone down, they are still above the maximum contaminant level.

To Pell, the solution is simple: Connect to Lynden’s water. Various local departments have worked to get Kontree hooked up to that water line, but progress has been slow because of a water-rights issue with a nearby community.

Even if Kontree can hook up to the municipal line, Pell said it might mean a higher utility cost for the residents such as Sauve who live off disability or welfare income.

“Our priority is we want those folks to have safe and reliable water,” Pell said. “When that water isn’t safe, we make sure people know how to protect themselves.”

Kip Sauve, 59, buys at least 15 gallons of water every month for himself and his pet cat and bird. He doesn’t trust the water that comes out of his faucet in Lynden, Wash. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

News21 reporter Jackie Wang contributed to this article.
To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Cows feed inside a barn at Dairy Dreams, a large-scale dairy operated by Don Niles in Kewaunee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Chelsea Rae Ybanez/News21)

KEWAUNEE COUNTY, Wisc. – In 2014, a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Mark Borchardt indicated that 40 of 131 residential wells sampled in Kewaunee County were contaminated with bovine feces.

Lynn Utesch, the founder of environmental advocacy group Kewaunee Cares, sees the presence of bovine feces in the water as coinciding with the expansion of large-scale dairy farms, known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations, in the area.

Kewaunee has 16 of these large-scale farms, with many of those managing thousands of cows – many more than the traditional farmers that once dominated the area.

Lee Luft, chairman of the Kewaunee County Groundwater Task Force, has been focusing on groundwater issues associated with large-scale dairy farming practices.

“We saw a very substantial increase in herd counts over the past 20 years or so,” he said. “In fact, Kewaunee County has seen the fastest herd growth of any county in the state by far.”

Luft explained that these large herds have exactly the impact one would imagine. “There ends up being high volumes of liquid manure” he said.

The concentration of feces – human and otherwise – has profound health implications. The contaminated groundwater is filled with coliform, E. coli and nitrates, which can lead to anything from serious bacterial infections to cancer.

“It definitely has an effect on our population in their health and the health for our children,” Utesch said.

Kewaunee Cares, which is made up of residents and small farmers, has focused on putting constraints on the practices of large farms in the county. These farms house between 1,000 and 6,000 cows in a handful of sheds across just 1 to 2 acres of a larger 40 to 60-acre lot.

That leaves behind high volumes of liquid manure concentrated on a small bit of land, making it more likely for that manure to seep down through the soil and into the groundwater.

Lynn Utesch unwinds fencing to stake around the pasture on his small dairy farm in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, before allowing his cows to graze. (Photo by Chelsea Rae Ybanez/News21)

Utesch said he believes these large-scale farming practices are causing the contamination. His group continues to look at the effects of industrial agriculture, push the county to set requirements on farms for things like manure spreading and petition the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

On the other side, large farm owners point to residential septics as another source of feces, but they don’t entirely deny the role their manure plays.

Don Niles is the president of Peninsula Pride Farms, a watershed initiative in Kewaunee County made from an alliance of large farm owners. In an online mission statement, the group said it’s “committed to protecting, nurturing and sustaining our precious soil, water and air.”

“Agriculture plays a role in environmental challenges in our county,” Niles said. “We’re the major use of land, and we have the major responsibility.”

His operation uses a methane digester to treat waste from his cows. “We use things like methane digesters to create green power but also reduce the pathogens in the manure,” he said of the building-sized machine that cost him millions.

Don Niles, owner of Dairy Dreams farm in Wisconsin, stands along the center corridor in one of his barns, surrounded by hundreds of his cows. (Photo by Chelsea Rae Ybanez/News21)

Still, Utesch said measures like this fall short, and the only solution is for these farms to take responsibility for specific wells their manure contaminates.

If residents can prove a specific farm contaminated their well, there is some legal recourse available. In situations like this, the Department of Natural Resources will intervene to compel the farm to pay for a replacement water source. Or residents can lodge a civil court case against the farm.

However, pinning contamination on a specific farm is complicated.

Jesse Jerabek, an architect in Kewaunee County, doesn’t own a single cow. In the short time after the expansion of Kinnard Farms down the road from him, he said his water became contaminated. While he feels the connection is obvious, proving it is another matter.

Borchardt said that requires technique called “microbial source tracking.” He explains that this method “could link a contamination event in a well to a particular farm,” and even more specifically “could link it to a particular cow.” The process matches animal DNA found in contaminated water to DNA in the manure on a farm.

Calves are tagged at Dairy Dreams, a large-scale dairy operated by Don Niles in Kewaunee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Chelsea Rae Ybanez/News21)

But there’s a catch. To work, a farm needs to provide a manure sample, something that may go against its own interests.

Niles expressed doubts about the technique, which is used routinely by microbiologists. “Even if you found out that it was bovine, there (are) 100 plus farms in the county,” he said. “How would you necessarily know which farm it came from?”

Beyond this, Niles said he also hesitates because of the high cost of the test.

Niles said he hopes his efforts help make Kewaunee water safe down the road.

“We’re not slowing down our program. We’re speeding up,” he said. “I think it’s gonna take us a long ways.”

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At Local Greens, Ron and Faye Mitchell mostly cultivate microgreens, which grow to about 10 inches before they are cut and sold in the area. (Photo by Jackie Wang/News21)

BERKELEY, Calif. – Tucked behind a Whole Foods in a corner warehouse unit, Ron and Faye Mitchell grow 8,000 pounds of food each month without using any soil, and they recycle the water their plants don’t use.

Hydroponic farming grows crops without soil. Instead, farmers add nutrients to the water the plants use. This method can produce a wide variety of plants, from leafy greens to dwarf fruit trees.

According to a study by the Arizona State University School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, hydroponic lettuce farming used about one-tenth of the water that conventional lettuce farming did in Yuma, Ariz. A similar study from the University of Nevada, Reno, found that growing strawberries hydroponically in a greenhouse environment also used significantly less water than conventional methods.

WATCH: How hydroponic farming uses water

The Mitchells started production of Local Greens in February 2014. They primarily grow microgreens such as kale, kohlrabi and sprouted beans while using the same amount of water as two average households and the same amount of electricity as three in a month, they said.

“Who knows what you’re getting when you’re using soil?” Faye said. “Hydroponics is a fully contained system, so we know exactly what’s in our water, what we want in it and what we don’t want in it, and we can control that.”

Ron Mitchell, 67, said the stacked trays inside his hydroponic farming facility in California allow them to grow twice as much. (Photo by Jackie Wang/News21)

Ron installed a water filtration system he customized. He removes fluoride, a common additive in municipal water, and chlorine, a common disinfection byproduct, before adding oxygen and other plant-specific nutrients.

To make use of the warehouse’s tall ceilings, the Mitchells stack six trays of microgreen seeds on top of each other. At one end, an irrigation spout controls the amount and type of water sent through the trays.

“Some plants don’t need or want nutrients because they have it in their seed,” Ron said. He explained that pea shoots don’t need any additives, but sunflowers require copious amounts of nutrients to grow quickly.

The water the plants don’t use is captured at the other end of the tray and reused for the next watering, with the nutrients replenished as needed. The additional nutrients in the water are organic and naturally-occurring since they don’t have to spray pesticides or herbicides in their controlled warehouse environment, Faye said.

The number of greenhouse farms has more than doubled since 2007, according to the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture. Some hydroponics advocates see the practice as a solution to a global food and water crisis.

“I don’t think it could take over the farming industry entirely because of the types of plants and vegetables people want to eat,” Faye said. “But I definitely think it could make a dent in the farming industry and make its place and replace certain types of farms for a more efficient and, in some cases, less expensive system.

At Local Goods in California, Ron Mitchell’s monitoring system checks the plants’ water supplies for temperature, pH level and electric conductivity. (Photo by Jackie Wang/News21)

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At the bee annex on Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus, the honey bees are not monitored or tagged. They are free to roam the skies. This can leave them vulnerable to contamination from nearby farming activities. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

MESA – Farmers depend on honey bees to produce one-third of our food and drink, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But experts say those same farmers may be killing those bees because of the pesticides they use.

WATCH: Researcher Osman Kaftanoglu explains how honey bees are impacted by pesticide-filled water

About 2.5 million honey bee colonies live in the U.S. today – a drop of more than 50 percent since the 1950s, when the U.S. had 5.5 million, according to the USDA.

Farmers struggle to pollinate their crops with this limited bee supply. For context, every 2 acres of almond farms requires one hive for proper pollination, and almond growers in California’s Central Valley rent about 1.7 million hives for the brief almond blossoming season every year, according to Gene Brandi, president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

Researchers attribute the decrease in bee population to colony collapse disorder, and a Canadian study identified pesticide-polluted puddles as a potential cause. Systemic pesticides stay in the soil for months, contaminating the bees’ water supply.

Osman Kaftanoglu, the project manager of the Honey Bee Research Lab at Arizona State University, wears a mesh helmet for safety. In his left hand, he holds a smoker that sedates bees as he works with them. In his right hand, he carries a tool that pries the hives open. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

Water pollution, said Arizona State University entomologist Osman Kaftanoglu, is important to understand in relation to bees.

“Bees need water, especially in Arizona,” said Kaftanoglu, project manager of ASU’s Honey Bee Research Lab. “If there is no water … the temperature gets very hot, and honey will melt, beeswax will melt and the colony will collapse.”

Bees manage their ideal hive temperature of about 90 degrees Fahrenheit by bringing water they collected back to the hive, where in-hive bees will evaporate it by fanning their wings.

In Arizona, water is crucial to a hive’s maintenance in the summer.

Researchers at Arizona State University’s bee annex house bee hives in boxes so they can monitor the health of the colony. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

If a bee travels outside the hive, collects contaminated water and finds its way home – which it may not since pesticide exposure impairs bees’ ability to orient themselves – the polluted water will reduce the lifespan of the rest of the bees. Their lifespans are already very short, Kaftanoglu said, and reducing it may affect the survival of the colony.

“The colonies cannot develop, and there will not be enough population to maintain the temperature in the hive and to take care of, to brood in the hive,” Kaftanoglu said. “The colonies will be weak.”

Kaftanoglu said though there are other pollinators in the United States, they cannot fill the role that honey bees play in pollination.

“Honey bees are the only insects that can be managed, and we can transport the bees from one place to another,” Kaftanoglu said. “There are no other insects that can do the job as well as honey bees.”

These hives at Arizona State University are artificial honeycomb frames that withstand the Arizona heat better than natural beeswax. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

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