Providing clean water for the Hopi

Greetings everyone,

Well the latest efforts continue with more outreach in Washington State with Leon McLaughlin and in Arizona with Martha Childress on Sedona Spotlight. Not only does she do her own radio show but also works with Nancy Rivard, the CEO of Airline Ambassadors International, together they are a unstoppable pair. Back in Febuary, Leon McLaughlin received funds from a generous donation of $2500 to Airline Ambassadors. From this donation, we were able to purchase more replacement filters for the countertop models and a few replacements for the solar unit, which also includes a UV light.

As for me, I did a short piece in a documentary last November and was able to preview it. I hope they decied to release it sometime soon. I have been handling some health concerns earlier in the year but now have things going in the right directions. It wasn't until March when my son and I continued to doing some installations and replacements after our Winter ceromonies ended and after the replacements arrived from the Airline Ambassadors donation. So far with the HAMP Project, the negotiations have come to  temporary end with the water users-end rates are somewhat reasonable. Our filter project will continue to monitor the arsenic levels in the recently installed waterline in the communities. A lot of the work dosen't happen without your help and our continued out reach to bring awareness to fabulous people like yourselves.

Kwah Kw`a (Thank-you)

Ernest Taho

Since the last report, the arsenic issue has continued to affect the community villages of First and Second Mesa’s despite the H.A.M.P Project being completed. Only due minor issues relating to the pipeline, a few villages still not connected to the pipeline and there were still negotiations happening between the villages and H.A.M.P. over the high cost end-user’s water rates. The Idea of the H.A.M.P Project is to dig new wells further out and deeper into the Navajo Aquifer to bring clean water with less arsenic that is below the E.P.A. Regulations to have the communities move back into compliance. Now even though the new H.A.M.P. Project pipeline will have cleaner water running through it, it will still have arsenic in it that could potentionally still affect the community members with underlying conditions. So with that in mind, we are still moving forward with this project in assisting to lessen the arsenic levels evenmore in our waters. As we continue moving forward with the installations. We are also trying to keep up with our replacement dates on the homes with filter units already installed.

While the project continues out in Hopi, we are also continuing our efforts in fundraising. We recently did our third presentation for the filter project in good old Sedona, AZ back in September of last year.It was a pleasent two-day event with awesome guests wanting to get some knowledge on what water conditions Hopi's are facing. Not only I did a presentation but we had two other guest speakers. We had Mr. Leon McLaughlin CEO of the Clean Water Foundation of Washington help discribe our project and what the need of the situation is on Hopi. We than had Mr. Vernon Masayesva of the Black Mesa Trust Organization and Ex-Chairman of the Hopi Tribe (my mentor), describe the results of Peabody's mining to the lands and the overuse of the prestine water of the Navajo Aquifier used to transport the coal slurry. As a result from this event, we were able to purchase some Reverse Osmosis Replacement filters for at least 25 units which includes 2 carbon filters, 1 sediment filter, 1 membrane filter and 1 sub-filter.

We are also very excited to say that Mr. McLaughlin is making great and impressive movements in achiving awesome partners to join in his efforts to get children clean water around the world... His latest effort focuses on the partnership with in the Snoqualmie Tribe 8th Generation apparel. Together they will work on some projects to raise funds for more water filters ( see link for more information on the 8th Generation Apparel).

Links:

• Snoqualmie Tribe 8th Generation apparel story