Earl Tulley, 63, spotted the sign in the community where he was born as the coronavirus rips through the largest reservation in the United States. In rural communities, he said, locals and relatives tend to look out for one another and check in on their neighbors. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic, residents still share resources, like food, and reach out to each other but from a distance. 

“In case of emergency, I can shine my mirror against the sun to my neighbors across the valley,” said Tulley, an environmentalist and executive office veteran liaison for the Navajo Housing Authority. “They know to come over.”

The Navajo Nation covers over 27,000 square miles, sprawling across Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Home to about 175,000 people, the Indian country has reported 2,654 Covid-19 cases and 85 deaths as of Thursday. It has the third-highest infection rate in the United States behind New York and New Jersey, and a per capita infection rate 10 times higher than Arizona. 

The Navajo Nation has reported reported 2,654 Covid-19 cases and 85 deaths as of Thursday. It has the third-highest infection rate in the United States behind New York and New Jersey. Photo of a sunrise courtesy of Earl Tulley

Before the pandemic, however, the Navajo, or Diné, people faced another kind of crisis: limited health care facilities, a prevalence of conditions like heart diseases and diabetes, few grocery stores and scarcity of running water. Now, these factors further complicate the Covid-19, or Dikos Ntsaaígíí-19, emergency in the community. 

“Do you wash your hands or do you quench your thirst?” Tulley said. “That is something that a number of families are faced with right now.”

An estimated 30 percent of the community’s population does not have access to clean, reliable drinking water, and has to haul it from watering points due to severe infrastructure deficiencies, according to the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources. 

“Water comes at a premium,” Tulley said. “If you count the payment of the wear and tear on the vehicle and the payment of utilizing water, it’s calculated somewhere in the neighborhood of about $40 a gallon, because you’re your own utility provider.”

Under strict curfews, lockdowns and checkpoints to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a trip to haul water can be a struggle. The city of Gallup, in New Mexico, is a regional watering hole, and the trek to the community has been a practice of local tribes for generations. On the first day of the month, Tulley said, people tend to visit the city to socialize and haul water. This May 1, however, Gallup was placed under lockdown. 

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday invoked the state’s Riot Control Act to close off all roads leading to Gallup, in McKinley County, “to mitigate the uninhibited spread of COVID-19 in that city.” McKinley County accounts for nearly 30 percent of coronavirus cases in the state. The lockdown, requested by the city’s mayor, is scheduled to end today.

“I believe that those individuals that live closer to the watering hole basically depended too much upon it,” said Tulley. “I don’t think that they could phathom or even comprehend that Gallup would ever do this. But, with the pandemic that is happening now, some of the people are saying, ‘You know what, it’s about time.’”

On top of lack of running water, there is also the issue of quality. Water in communities like east To’hajiilee, in New Mexico, have high sulfur content, Tulley said. “There’s nothing wrong with it as far as health wise, but the stench and the smell of sulfur water is really, really bad,” he said. “It does wear and tear on your plumbing, and if you have a porcelain sink or a ceramic sink, then you can see the yellow marks.” 

Difficulties to drive to haul water apply to the struggle to buy supplies during the pandemic, too. Roughly the size of West Virginia, the Navajo Nation has only 13 grocery stores, so residents drive hundreds of miles to border towns for groceries. 

“Not very many people have transportations, and so those individual families who are not blessed to have a vehicle, then they would have to hitchhike,” said Tulley. “It’s not going to the corner market.” 

Environmentalist Earl Tulley delivers a box of food to Dennis Charley in Tachee, Arizona. Photo courtesy of Earl Tulley

Recently, Tulley participated in a community effort to distribute 80,000 pounds of food on the reservation. The food distributed came from humanitarian aid collected in Salt Lake City, Utah, and went to several communities in the territory, from Farmington to Crown Point. 

Rural families like Tulley’s have adapted to living within their means, herding sheep and depending on live stock. “If you’re able to go out into Mother Nature’s garden,” he said, “then you pretty much have a greater understanding as to how to live off the land.” 

Like grocery stores, health facilities are limited on the reservation. There are 12 healthcare centers in the Navajo Nation and nearby areas, according to the Indian Health Service. In March, the tribe reported that it had 170 hospital beds, 13 intensive care unit beds, 52 isolation rooms and 28 ventilators. 

“If you are working and you have insurance, the possibility of having your own specialists, your own doctor, that would be a blessing,” Tulley said. “But in many of our Navajo communities, people are dependent, and the only resource that they have, as far as Western medicine or medical care, is going to be through the public health service or the Indian Health Service.”

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said that federal aid began to trickle into the Indian country in April and that the Indian Health Service facilities received vital equipment. Last month, the community distributed rapid test kits, protective equipment and 50 ventilators.

Nez said the community has not received the emergency funds needed for testing and equipment. The Navajo Nation is set to receive $600 million in federal funding from the distribution of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. 

As the coronavirus tears through his tribe, Tulley has taken the time to share with his four grandchildren and teach them to garden. He tells them that, if they plant a seed in the ground, they must nurture and sing to it so it can grow. 

He reassures them that life will come back to normal at some point.

The post Coronavirus tears through the Navajo Nation  appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Walk due east from Newark Penn station, and you’ll pass through the close-knit working-class community known as the Ironbound. Once a major industrial hub, this neighborhood has become known for its heavy Spanish and Portuguese cultural influence. And now, like the rest of Newark, it is also known for its hazardous water supply. State testing has found high traces of lead contamination in the city’s water supply, and Ironbound residents risk being overlooked as the municipal government moves to alleviate the crisis.

According to CBS, around a quarter of Newark children under six have lead in their bloodstreams. Lead poisoning is especially hazardous for children because it can stunt their cognitive development. The CDC warns that lead exposure can damage the nervous system, slow growth and development, cause learning and behavioral problems, as well as speech and hearing problems.

Mixed Messages from City Hall

The city government’s response to the contamination has been haphazard. Newark gets water from two main facilities, the Pequannock and the Wanaque. Initially, Newark officials distributed filters to residents served by the Pequannock water treatment plant, while insisting that homes serviced by the Wanaque system are safe. But this claim has come under fire, with a class action suit against the city accusing it of neglecting lead levels in areas served by the Wanaque, including the Ironbound.

Marco Germano, a bike program volunteer from the city’s Central Ward, is concerned that official reports make it difficult to pin down the source of the problem.

“I’ve heard mixed messages that the water that comes to our city is very good, but the pipes within the older buildings are contaminated,” Germano said. “On the flip side, I’ve heard that there’s issues with the water coming into the city, and the pipes in the houses just compound it.”

Despite his uncertainty, Germano expressed confidence in the city government’s response. He accepts Mayor Ras Baraka’s endorsement of the water supply, and given that Germano lives in a new building, he believes that its water supply is safe.

Residents of the Ironbound itself tend to be less sanguine. Jessica Valladolid of the Ironbound Community Corporation fears that a combination of industrial activity and official neglect make this segment of the city’s East Ward particularly vulnerable.

“We have a large population here, but very much underserved,” Valladolid said. “A lot of contamination because of the factories here. Now, we’re being told that the homes here also should be tested, which we assumed [had been done] already.”

Valladolid also expressed concern that other neighborhoods in the city were being prioritized more heavily than poorer and often undocumented residents of East Ironbound.

“The people going door to door and asking homeowners if they need to have their lead checked in their homes seems like it’s happening in a lot of different areas of Newark, but neglecting a lot of others, like the East Ironbound,” she said.

Ironbound’s Demographics Complicate the Issue

In addition to official neglect, Ironbound residents are also impeded by local regulations when they try to obtain filters for their water systems.

“In this community, we have a lot of undocumented folks and a lot of people that are not homeowners,” Valladolid said. “So they’ve been coming to this community center, and asking where to get their filtration systems from, being sent downtown and being rejected for not being homeowners and not being able to pick up a filtration system.”

This stipulation is compounded by what many in the Ironbound see as neglect from their landlords. Patricia Romero, a lunch truck worker in East Ironbound, doubts her landlord is even aware of Newark’s contamination problems.

“My landlord, I don’t think she even knows what City Hall is,” Romero said. “She doesn’t live here. She lives in New Brunswick. She’s okay with the building, but I don’t think she knows that the water’s bad.”

That said, Romero also feels that the tenants in Ironbound bear some responsibility for the neighborhood’s slow reaction to the crisis.

“This is the problem of the immigrant towns,” she said. “They don’t pay attention to this. They go to work, they come home, they go to work, they come home. And whatever happens around them, they don’t notice or they don’t care…And minority people here don’t own anything, they only rent. So they just keep going.”

“Even the landlords sometimes are immigrants, so they don’t pay attention,” Romero added. “They only pay attention to, ‘Oh, they raised my taxes!’”

Retired computer science teacher Lenny Thomas is concerned that city authorities haven’t tested for lead contamination as diligently as they should have. Photo by Teddy Haines.

For Ironbound, the community’s age is another risk factor. The neighborhood became a center of industry at the turn of the 20th Century, and many of its buildings date back to that era. Retired computer science teacher Lenny Thomas explained why water lines leading into the Ironbound are especially risky, even if the city’s service lines are clean.

“A lot of houses here are over a hundred years old,” Thomas said. “So they [were] built before they started worrying about lead, and they will have lead in them. That’s probably the reason why a lot of people use bottled water or filtered water already…they were the smart people.”

Among those smart people were Frank Gonzalez and his family. Gonzalez, a construction manager, relied on filtered water for years before the problem of lead contamination became a widespread concern in Newark.

“Our family…for a long time, we’ve never really used the tap water…right out of the faucet,” Gonzalez said. “We always use bottled water.”

Newark construction manager Frank Gonzalez has relied on filtered water instead of the tap for five years, ever since the birth of his first child. Photo by Teddy Haines.

Despite his precautions, Gonzalez still feels uneasy about the situation, since he has a five-year-old and a two-year-old at risk.

“The positive thing…is that for as long as they’ve been alive, we never really gave them water right out of the tap,” he said.

Residents Don’t Feel Their Voices Are Being Heard

One common theme in residents’ complaints is that landlords and the Newark government are unlikely to treat their predicament with the urgency it demands.

“They should change the whole system, but it’s not gonna happen,” said Patricia Romero. “Because it’s very expensive…They have to change the government, and the government is all in attracting business…everything else takes second place.”

Frank Gonzalez agreed, saying that official neglect of Ironbound is a perennial problem in Newark.

“I don’t think the Ironbound is ever well-served in anything,” Gonzalez said. “Because unfortunately, and I hate to say this, but unfortunately a lot of the residents in this area are not very proactive. They don’t stand up for themselves.”

Gonzalez argued that this civic apathy on the part of Ironbound residents manifests itself on other fronts as well.

“It’s not just this issue, there’s a lot of issues where people just let it slide,” he said. “We haven’t had street cleaning in months…garbage pickup is a problem, nobody ever seems to say anything, and it seems like it just keeps happening to this ward. The city of Newark doesn’t care about this ward, because they don’t get any heat for it.”

The post Residents in This Newark Neighborhood Feel Neglected in Water Contamination Crisis appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

More than 130 days have passed since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, devastating the island and causing one of the greatest humanitarian and environmental crises of the last decades. Today, electricity still hasn’t been restored across the island and the water situation is even worse.

Steve Tamar, director at Blue Water Task Force Rincon water quality program and vice chair of the Surfrider Rincon Foundation is stationed in the northwestern point of the island where, in many areas, power still hasn’t been restored.

“There’s no power since the hurricane,” said Tamar. “Water was restored to this barrio three weeks ago, but it’s kind of intermittent, it comes and goes.”

According to the Associated Press, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, raw sewage poured into the streams and rivers of the island, contaminating the water. The presence of toxic waste in the water leaking from the 23 Superfund sites on the island also increased threats of bacterial diseases, like leptospirosis, which caused two deaths after the hurricane.

Because of this, chlorine is being used to clean the water, causing the islanders to deal with yet another problem. According to Scientific American, excessive chlorine in water may cause respiratory issues and increase the risk of bladder, rectal and breast cancers.

“They’re hyper chlorinating the entire system specifically to kill microorganisms and it’s changing the pH in the water,” said Tamar. “And we’re recommending people not to drink it or to boil it first and let it sit and outgas.”

Tamar and his team are testing the water for quality and installing water treatment units where necessary or, when it’s more efficient, distributing domestic home filters house by house.

The island’s battered infrastructure continues to be a problem and many believe it won’t be able to handle the increasing threat of climate change if no changes are made.

Specifically, Tamar believes that the electrical transmission lines should be buried and not exposed to wind damage.

“It’s having electricity above ground that’s a real liability to islands like this,” said Paul Strum, director of Ridge to Reefs organization. “Certainly Puerto Rico’s infrastructure was old and badly maintained, but when you have trees and power lines that are above ground it doesn’t matter how good that infrastructure is, it’s going to have severe damages from the storm.”

With the Trump Administration recently cutting funding for the EPA and increasing environmental policy rollbacks such as toxic waste protocols, many organizations on the ground feel that government agencies haven’t done enough to help.

“Both the federal agencies and the Puerto Rican agencies are doing very little,” said Tamar. “The government’s already saying ‘we’re gonna sell the electric system’ cause they can’t handle it.”

According to FEMA, Puerto Rico was one of their largest missions yet.

 But, in the thick of it, organizations felt it was easier to act independently.

“We didn’t waste a lot of time with FEMA or EPA. There was too much heat on the ground to bother with coordination with large bureaucracies,” said Sturm. “It wasn’t a productive use of our time.”

Both the reconstruction and the resiliency building are happening as a bottom-up process, where organizations work to manage relief projects on their own.

“My personal thing has been going up to these remote barrios and distributing little solar powered lights,” said Tamar. “Every time I go up there I empty out the vehicle, giving hundreds away at a time.”

According to Ridge to Reefs the island is starting to develop pockets of areas using renewable energy. Even though they’re still extraordinarily vulnerable, having renewable energy sources means that power is not attached to the grid, avoiding failure if anything were to happen, and functioning as a backup system in case of emergency.

“Water pumping stations, sewage treatment facilities, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, things like that should really be off the grid and not dependent on the power system,” said Sturm.

With the bureaucracy gridlock, lack of transparency in managing funds and a generally dysfunctional system, many still think it will take time before things are back to normal.

“People are still working four months later, they’re rebuilding, still replanting their farms,” said Sturm. “And in many instances they’re trying to do it with limited water and energy. They’re expected to be ongoing for another 6 to 12 months.”

Others, however, are less optimistic about timing but are counting on the community’s willingness to stick together and help each other.

“We’re not being overly hopeful of recovery being completed anytime soon,” said Tamar. “Things are really, really messed up here, but the community is coming together to solve its own problems.”

The post Puerto Rico stuck in an environmental crisis appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Monica Hunken, of Brooklyn, leads a chant outside of Long Island City’s DEC building calling for a statewide ban on hydraulic fracturing. Photo by Alyana Alfaro

When Eileen Hamlin first moved to her property in rural Kirkwood, N.Y. almost 30 years ago, she never imagined her 26-acre property—complete with a freshwater pond, a patch of woods and home to a family of red fowls—could become a drilling site for natural gas.

Now, as Governor Cuomo’s decision on hydraulic fracturing or fracking— looms Hamlin, 77, says she is worried for the area she and her husband, John, have called home since 1981.

“We expected to be able to live here and age in place as they say,” Hamlin said. “That apparently is not to be if the Governor allows fracking here.”

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of drilling and injecting fluids into the ground at high pressures in order to fracture shale rocks and release natural gas to be used as energy. While no definitive studies have been done, fracking has been linked to health and environmental concerns in many areas and the possible decision to bring fracking to New York has been especially controversial.

After over 4 years of indecision on the topic—and a moratorium in place that continues to put off the decision—if a pronouncement on fracking is not made by Cuomo and the Department of Environmental Conservation by Feb. 27, the issue will once again be up for review and will remain in contention, leaving homeowners like Hamlin, who rely on wells for drinking water, unsure of what the future holds.

“What they are trying to do here is drill in neighborhoods where there are a lot of houses,” Hamlin said. “Some engineers told us that about 10 percent of the water comes back so that water is not like golf course water that just goes in the soil, it is deep in the Earth. It is trapped. What is left down might seep out of the cracks in the shale and pollute our aquifers.”

With the upcoming government decision, the past two weeks have been a time of action for New York’s anti-fracking initiative. Rallies, such as one organized on Feb. 6 outside the Long Island City offices of the DEC, have happened all over New York State urging the government to officially reject fracking.

Dave Publow , 46, attended the DEC rally with members of his organization, Occupy the Pipeline. For Publow, the water contamination issues associated with high-pressure fracturing are what have driven him to make a “pledge of resistance” to resort to whatever means necessary to block fracking if it is put into practice in New York. The pledge, which is an initiative of the group Don’t Frack New York, has over 6,500 signatures statewide.

“If they do try to frack, we will block them,” Publow said. “We will use civil disobedience if we have to and we will not allow them to frack in this state.”

FrackingNY_1-2

Protester Monica Hunken rallies the crowd.

Vera Scroggins, 62, lives in Susquehanna County, Pa., one of the regions with the most natural gas drilling in the United States. Scroggins gives what she calls “citizen tours” of her area to show visitors what it is like to live in a region where fracking is a major industry.

“I show people from all over the world and New York in particular what it is like to live with fracking and near fracking in our neighborhoods and our countryside,” she said. “I take them out for about four hours or more and show them the different stages all the way from the drilling, to the the fracking, to the flares.”

For Scroggins, while fracking has been economically beneficial to the Pennsylvania economy, the risks are not worth the rewards.

“I see a lot of polarity, a lot of conflicts in our area,” Scroggins said. “People take sides, those who want it badly, those who don’t want it, those who are in the middle. We have a very polarized society now and community.”

For Hamlin, whose property is surrounded on three sides by land that is leased and zoned for fracking, the Governor’s decision may change her life forever.

“I cannot tolerate having well pads on two or three sides of my property,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of the animals I see on my property or the birds hurt and I don’t care to have my house made worse because Governor Cuomo decides to go through this.”

Hamlin, though she says she loves her area, said she would probably relocate if the moratorium on fracking was lifted.

“I am very saddened about it because I don’t like the idea of having to give up my home,” she said. “I really feel like we are being invaded by this industry.”

The post With fracking decision looming, New Yorkers worry about water appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Fracking companies routinely plow plots of land in order to run pipelines through the countryside. Here a clearing in the mountains of Sullivan County, Pa Photo by Eric Zerkel

LYCOMING COUNTY, Pa -Tucked between sprawling green hills and meandering creeks, where the roads run narrow and dirty, Drake Saxton and Andrea Young take refuge.

For Saxton and Young, life in Moreland Township is a labor of love, 25-years of dedication to perfect their dream bed and breakfast, each log, each stone, each building hand built over-time; a place where they could retire to the unspoiled serenity of central Pennsylvania.

That is until the methane gas from the nearby hydraulic fracturing well seeped into their drinking water, rendering it unusable and threatened to end their business. Dangerous levels of the cancer causing gas radon followed, with levels jumping to over 23 picocuries per liter, more than 6 times the safe limit suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“This took us 25 years to build, and it could all be gone,” said Saxton, 64 as he recounted the 14 years he and Andrea spent living in a rehashed chicken coop as they worked on their house. “Once the water is gone, my property is worthless, just like that,” he said.

Saxton and Young are just one example of many Pennsylvanians who have been dealing with the negative side effects of the boom of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” – a process for harvesting natural gas. Their experiences have left them politically dejected, and now they find themselves outcasts in the middle of a hot environmental debate that could boil over in the upcoming presidential election.

“We have told state legislators, we have lobbied their offices, but there is no use in telling them because they have already been told again and again,” Saxton said.

All along the Pennsylvania countryside pads are cut into the forested areas, breaking up the continuity of oaks and birches with the dull rumble of drills, compression pumps and other equipment necessary to tap the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation below ground.

Drake Saxton indicates how contaminates get into his well water. Photo by Eric Zerkel

“We are in the sacrifice zone, said Ralph Kisberg, 56, a native of Lycoming County. “The rights of people are secondary to what the country wants to do.”

In many cases, access to these drill sites is proprietary, and the mineral rights are exclusive to the property owner. As a result, gas companies with names like Anadarko and XTO send “land men” to knock on the doors of the farmhouses and old Victorians that dot the landscape, offering exorbitant amounts of money for leased mineral rights to their land.

The minimum gas royalty in Pennsylvania is 12.5 percent of all the gas taken from the wellhead. Simply put, the more gas pumped out, the more money a landowner can collect, sometimes into the millions.

“It’s not unusual to see that,” Kisberg said, as he pointed out a sheen green tin roof atop a dilapidated old farmhouse, just feet away from a drill site. “People around here are poor, so when they get their check from leasing their land they run out and by new roofs, new trucks, things they never dreamed of affording.”

Kisberg is the president of Responsible Drilling Alliance, an organization that aims to educate Lycoming County residents on the potential consequences of shale gas drilling. Kisberg, like many others, leased his mineral rights to his property north of Williamsport.

“The land owners, they are all in on it, including myself,” said Kisberg. “They are all rubbing their hands together while they count their royalties.”

But John Trallo, 60, never wanted in. His home, located in the heart of Sonestown in nearby Sullivan County, was supposed to be a refuge from the environmental hazards that marred his past. The wife of his four children died at the age of 42, Trallo said, due to cancer directly related to exposure to the pesticide DDT, sprayed across the farms of his former residence just outside Philadelphia.

“I wanted to get away from the pollution,” said Trallo. “Sullivan County is called ‘the gem of the endless mountains’ for a reason; it’s supposed to be dedicated to preserving that beauty, that peace and quiet.”

Now the land Trallo sought refuge in, has turned against him.

“When you turn on your faucet and what comes out looks like chocolate and smells like diesel fuel, it’s easy to see something’s not right,” said Trallo.

Trallo said he hasn’t had potable water in over 15 months. He said his water source had been contaminated by leaking gas from a fracking well atop North Mountain, just a half mile behind his house. Tests on his water showed shocking results, traces of methane, barium, strontium and arsenic were flowing out of his tap.

“Fracking companies have done more than just change the land, Trallo said. “They have completely transformed it.”

Trallo’s home sits well outside the 2,500-foot zone of “presumed liability” that forces gas companies to assume responsibility for any negative effects of tapping the wells, which he said has left him with few political options.

“I don’t think there is a political solution,” said Trallo. “As long as they (politicians) don’t have to stand in someone’s kitchen and watch as someone lights brown liquid coming out of a faucet on fire, they can deny it.”

Trallo said he had exhausted the same options as Saxton, and was so frustrated with the political climate that he planned on throwing his hat into the political arena, writing himself in as a representative of the 110th District of Pennsylvania.

“I don’t care if I win or lose the election,” said Trallo. “If I can just get people to understand the effects of this industry, that’s all I want.”

On the back deck of his bed and breakfast Drake Saxton stood, staring out over the shallow banks of Little Muncy Creek.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” he said with a somber smile.

View from the hill overlooking Drake and Andrea Saxton's Bed and Breakfast. Mr. Sexton said he recently learned that a gas company plans to drill atop the hill, potentially threatening his drinking water. Photo by Eric Zerkel

For the first time the Pennsylvania wilderness offered no refuge.

“No matter who we vote for we run the risk of losing all of this,” said Saxton. “When does it end, and who helps us? No one.”

The post GOP Primary: Living with Fracking appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

The group Human Borders places water barrels like this throughout the Arizona desert. Volunteers hope to save the lives of as many illegal immigrants as possible. Photo by Rhea Mahbubani

Arizona’s Sonora Desert lies under a seemingly endless blue sky, framed by sun-drenched, rugged mountains. The topography is dotted with shrubs, cacti and weeds, forming a landscape that is seductively beautiful, yet inherently dangerous.

The scorching sun forms cracks in the parched soil, littered with tangled roots and prickly shrubs. The area is home to rattlesnakes and mountain lions, as well as cacti with injurious thorns and branches. For those traveling on foot, the unpredictable terrain can cause blisters, burnt and scratched skin and eye injuries, while over-exposure to relentless heat that can soar to 116 degrees induces dehydration and, in many instances, death.

In the distance, a blue flag – simultaneously incongruous and at home in its surroundings – flaps vigorously in the wind.

“There she blows,” proclaimed volunteers of Humane Borders, a Tucson-based organization responsible for erecting the 30-foot flagpole and the water station it indicates. The group is jokingly called the ‘Love Crew’ by the U.S. Border Patrol.

What started in 2000 as a small group seeking to contribute has since grown into Humane Borders, or Fronteras Compasivas, a wellspring of humanitarian assistance aimed at alleviating the pileup of migrant deaths in the desert.

The porous Arizona-Mexico border has historically served as a gateway for migrants – a majority of whom are Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran or El Salvadorian – en route to Arizona’s inner cities and beyond in search of ever-elusive work.

After the construction of the first border walls in 1994 – subsequently expanding to nearly 800 miles interspersed with vehicle and pedestrian barriers, fences, surveillance cameras and an increased presence of Border Patrol agents – the easier points of entry have been sealed off, pushing migrants into remote, inhospitable parts of the desert.

With approximately 2,000 people crossing the border per day, the death toll is high.

According to Bruce Parks, the chief medical examiner at Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, the body count in 2010 stands at 194, which is ahead of the pace of 2007 and on par with the total number of deaths in 2009.

Humane Borders’  mission is to help the migrants who risk death to come to the U.S.

“Of course, we want safe borders,” said Sofia Gomez, the executive director and sole staff member of Humane Borders since January 2010. “But humane borders means that we don’t want anybody to get hurt or killed on our borders. That’s the mission under which we all unite.”

They help by providing water, a lifeline to dehydrated migrants.

“We’d rather carry water out to the desert than carry a body bag in to the medical examiner,” said Sister Elizabeth Ohmann, one of the organization’s founders.

Having taken shape as an initiative among Christian churches, the volunteer-run organization evolved into a multi faith-based initiative under the leadership of Rev. Robin Hoover, welcoming people regardless of their spiritual or political affinity.

In close collaboration with the Border Patrol, Pima County’s Office of the Medical Examiner and the Mexican Consulate, members of Humane Borders pinpoint the exact location of previous deaths. Ongoing and sometimes grueling negotiations with the Department of Interior earns them permits for the strategic construction and maintenance of water stations on federal, county, city and private land, which they hope will prevent a recurrence of dehydration-related deaths.

Joel Smith, from Humane Borders, fits a tap onto a water barrel in the Arizona desert. Photo by Rhea Mahbubani

“It’s simple — water is life-sustaining,” said Gomez. “A cup of water can save a life, and that’s why our organization’s founders came up with this plan.”

Since the first water station was set up on March 7, 2001, more than 100 water stations and 160,000 gallons of water have been serviced, with 70 trips scheduled between May and September, and 30 from October throughl April. These operations are entirely funded by church and individual donations.

The group’s water run on Oct. 16 was significant because it marked the installation of a brand new water station, recently named Brawley Wash, in the western part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Volunteers also inspected six other existing stations.

Three volunteers — Joel Smith, Lance Leslie, and Raymond Daukei — rode with Gomez in a white Chevrolet truck equipped with a pump, hose, and water reservoir. It displayed the organization’s trademark logo of water pouring from a “drinking gourd” shaped like the Big Dipper.

On a trip punctuated with chatter and laughter, the team replaced worn-out water barrels and tattered flags, tested pH levels, replenished chlorine-purified water and placed new stickers with the word “Agua” on blue plastic barrels obtained from syrup companies.

At Brawley Wash, a new 55-gallon barrel was placed atop steel stands, nestled in the shade of a tree. At an incline a few feet away, a metal flagpole was inserted into the ground, and a piece of blue cloth, a remnant of a retired flag, was tied to a mesquite tree to direct migrants toward the newly-constructed water station.

“Tens of thousands of people have given their time for this cause,” said Leslie, a 39-year-old lawyer, keeping his eyes peeled for litter and track marks indicative of migrants’ presence. “We all think the same – if there was one life that we could save, then that’s good.”

In partnership with more than 100 sister organizations – parishes and human rights groups – Humane Borders offers multi-faceted humanitarian assistance. Volunteers travel to border towns and educate people on the harsh realities of crossing the desert. They also organize groups to clean parts of the desert where migrants discard their belongings.

Members are also discussing an official organizational presence in the neighboring Tohono O’odham Native American reservation, where a large number of deaths continue to occur.

Raymond Daukei, a member of this tribal community and member of Humane Borders fears, however, that these negotiations might not amount to very much.

The tribal government cannot officially allow humanitarian groups on the reservation for fear of appearing supportive to illegal immigration, he explained.

“But our culture is one of hospitality,” the 30-year old resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., said regarding the internal divide within the tribal community. “When people are far from home, we look out for them and try to feed, clothe and shelter them. With so many people crossing the border everyday, however, we are too inundated.”

Although a committed volunteer of Humane Borders, Daukei believes that within the larger context humanitarian services are a “Band-Aid,” since the real need is for immigration reform.

Volunteers from Humane Borders placed a new water station in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Rhea Mahbubani

This past summer, with immigration the talk of the town, Humane Borders came under attack, despite its neutral stance. The trickle-down effect of controversial legislature, such as SB 1070, divided the community and made humanitarian work seem pro-illegal immigration, Gomez said.

After air was let out from truck tires and equipment was stolen, the organization was forced to move its headquarters to a location with a secure parking lot. The damage, however, did not end there. Between January 2009 and July 2010, Humane Borders experienced a 19 percent increase in vandalism at their water stations, with barrels being burned, stabbed and tipped over to let the water run out. Some even had a round of shots fired into them.

“During the summer, it was like a football match,” said Joel Smith, 47. “People would pull the stations down and we’d go out and put them back up again.”

Smith, a driver for the organization, bent down to inspect of a piece of rusted rebar, the top of which had been broken off.

“This is solid metal that can’t be broken by hand,” he said. “Someone must have driven a fast-moving truck into the flag post and pulled this out of the ground, breaking it. It’s obvious that a lot of people don’t want us here.”

Despite such obstacles, Humane Borders’ water stations have been credited with saving the lives of many migrants. The Border Patrol reported, for example, that 33 lives were saved in a single day in April 2002.

As a public administrator, Gomez realizes the necessity of clearer policies and procedures to deal with illegal immigration, but she encourages people to sometimes focus on the moral issues at hand.

“On our end, we would love to be out of business,” she said. “I would love to walk out of this position knowing that there are no more deaths occurring on our border but that’s not happening yet.”

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