Navajo Nation to improve sewage treatment after violations

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – Six sewage treatment plants in Arizona portions of the Navajo Nation have been violating federal standards by discharging wastewater that exceeded pollutant and bacterial limits.

The Navajo Nation will spend $6 million on improvements, reported the Arizona Daily Sun.

Tribal utility agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Navajo Nation EPA say the six treatment facilities have years of Clean Water Act violations.

Plants discharge into the Little Colorado River and a San Juan River tributary.

“We have a long history of us doing short-term compliance fixes that are short-lived, then we're back in the same situation,” said Rex Kontz of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.

He said demand is starting to exceed capacity.

“The main thing is they are just old systems and the communities have grown,” he said.

Kontz said the utility plans significant changes at two facilities in addition to mandated upgrades, though securing grants and loans will be a challenge.

Manny Teodoro is a Texas A&M University associate professor of political science who has researched inspections and violations at tribal facilities.

“It's almost a dead certainty that nontribal facilities have received far more in federal and state grants for facilities,” Teodoro said.

Teodoro is the primary author on a paper that says tribal facilities were inspected less but recorded more violations of the Clean Water Act than those not run by tribes.

According to the paper, federal laws on water protection did not apply to tribes in the 1970s and 1980s, a time of increased government funding for local water projects. The tribes missed out on that initial boost.

“Tribal and nontribal, a lot of facilities are perennially out of compliance,” Teodoro said. “There are some facilities that just violate year in and year out.”

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Information from: Arizona Daily Sun, http://www.azdailysun.com/