By admin 
LEUPP, AZ (AZFamily) — The mega-drought affecting the southwest is not getting any better.
Read more Another weekend of fun in southern Arizona
The latest sign is that the Navajo Nation just due to extreme drought conditions.
About a third of people on the Navajo Nation don’t have access to running water in their homes, and now, Navajo Nation representatives shared that some of their wells are drying up.
The Navajo Nation spans more than 27,000 square miles across three states, and about one in every three people living on the reservation does not have access to running water.
Crystalyne Curley, the speaker of the Navajo Nation Council and who oversees the nation’s central district, said they’ve been dealing with drought for about two decades, but the last five years have been especially tough.
She said now, even people with running water are seeing their wells run dry. That means more Navajos are forced to drive more than an hour just to get clean drinking water.
“Just to find a reliable water source in other communities,” Curley said. “So, longer drives, they have already been already doing longer drives to get to that watering point. Now that it’s dry, they had to take an additional 30 or 50 miles again just to get water.”
She said even school children are seeing the ripple effects.
“I know we had an incident out in Cameron where they had to temporarily close down the school there because they did not have water,” Curley said.
So the Nation declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.
Curley said they passed a $6.55 million agricultural infrastructure fund two months ago in preparation for this.
Read more Tucson businesses see World Cup boost as fans pack bars, restaurants
The emergency declaration allows them to use the money for drought mitigation.
“It also recommends leadership take into consideration investment in windmill repairs, more water infrastructure, or even to upgrade the wells and also earthen dams for our livestock,” she said.
It will also allow the 110 Navajo chapters to come up with plans and resources for families who live within those chapters.
Curley said getting their own water rights would help the entire nation with its growing water and drought problems.
One bill introduced last year would settle water rights claims, giving some new certainty to the Navajo Nation, as well as the Hopi tribe and the San Juan Southern Paiute tribe.
“We also need to recognize that this is one reason why the main reason why we need our Northern Eastern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act passed,” she said.
Locals can visit their chapter house for help or apply for relief through the Navajo Water Project.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Read more SAFE Alert issued for missing Tucson man