The Heller School for Social Policy and ManagementBrandeis University

Assisting The Water Haulers:

Using Grassroots Driven Development to Secure Environmental Justice

Submitted by

Rita Monestersky-Sebastian

A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree In

Sustainable International Development

__________________________________________________________ __________Academic Advisor Date

__________________________________________________________ __________ Director of the Sustainable International Development Program Date

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Table of Contents

Abstract........................................................................................................................................................3Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................4Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................................6Abbreviations...............................................................................................................................................7Introduction..................................................................................................................................................8Description of the sustainable development problem..................................................................................9

Problems faced by the water haulers.......................................................................................................9Efforts to Improve Access to Water......................................................................................................10Access to Water as an Environmental Justice Issue..............................................................................11

Development question...............................................................................................................................12EPA History of Collaborative Partnership............................................................................................13

Methods.....................................................................................................................................................14A Community Learns about Participatory Development......................................................................14A Collaborative Project to Provide Safe Water.....................................................................................15Limitations of the Learning Method......................................................................................................16

Literature Review......................................................................................................................................16The Historical Context...........................................................................................................................17Government/Grassroots Partnership Models.........................................................................................18EPA/Grassroots Partnerships.................................................................................................................19

Discussion..................................................................................................................................................20The Partners...........................................................................................................................................20The Work...............................................................................................................................................211: Process v Blueprint............................................................................................................................212: Agency...............................................................................................................................................223: Participation.......................................................................................................................................244: Capacity.............................................................................................................................................265: Utilitarianism.....................................................................................................................................276: Interlinkages......................................................................................................................................287: Power redistribution..........................................................................................................................308: Cultural Relevancy............................................................................................................................31

Conclusion and Implications.....................................................................................................................31Measurements of Success......................................................................................................................32Implications for Water Haulers.............................................................................................................33Implications for Grassroots Organizations............................................................................................34Implications for EPA.............................................................................................................................34

Appendix :.................................................................................................................................................36Appendix A: Community Mapping Project...........................................................................................36Appendix B: Project Partners and Contributors....................................................................................37Appendix C: EPA Signage....................................................................................................................38

Bibliography..............................................................................................................................................39

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Abstract

This paper reviews a collaboration between a grassroots organization on the Navajo Nation and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the purpose of providing safe drinking water for families located in remote areas where local sources were contaminated by uranium and other pathogens. The project was sponsored under the Environmental Justice (EJ) program at the EPA. EJ began as a grassroots movement to prevent minority communities from suffering a disproportionate share of environmental threats. The EJ movement has expanded to include the assertion of positive liberties, such as when minority communities lack equal access to services such as the provision of safe drinking water. As a result, the EJ movement became involved in community development and needed tools and strategies for allowing grassroots empowerment within these efforts. These can be provided by grassroots driven development (GDD) approaches that have emerged within the field of development theory and practices. The project was coordinated by a graduate student from the Heller School for Sustainable International Development, which integrates the principles and techniques of GDD into its core curriculum. This paper discusses how the tools of GDD were used to organize the project and how they affected the collaboration with the EPA and other government agency partners. The project can serve as a template for how GDD can be used to empower communities to participate as full partners in development projects conducted in collaboration with the EPA.

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Executive Summary

This paper describes how the tools of grassroots driven development were employed within a collaboration between the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a grassroots organization on the Navajo Nation. The purpose of the partnership was to provide access to safe drinking water for the community of Black Falls, where the local sources were contaminated by uranium and other pathogens. The project was funded under an Environmental Justice (EJ) program grant. Access to drinking water has been identified as an EJ issue because a disproportionate percentage of Native American households lack sanitation and piped water. The situation in Black Falls also qualified as an EJ issue because the presence of abandoned uranium mines in the area contributed to the contamination of local water sources. Both the siting of the mines in a minority community and the failure to take remedial action on the abandoned sites follow the patterns of discrimination which gave rise to the EJ movement.

The involvement of an EJ program in providing access to safe drinking water reflects an evolution in the EJ movement from its initial focus on blocking developments that were harmful to communities. Instead, the EJ activity was to become part of a development project. For an EJ project, the means through which a development takes place can be as important as the output. EJ is a grassroots movement and the directly affected people must be an integral part of every aspect of the process. The empowerment of the people is an essential part of achieving EJ. The EPA created a Collaborative Model for partnerships between grassroots organizations and the EPA to serve as a template for this type of project.

Modern development theory can contribute to these efforts. The original top-down development approaches have been supplemented with an increasing emphasis on community driven development (CDD) in which local governing bodies and organizations play an important role in the process. At the Heller School, emphasis is given to a bottom-up approach in which grassroots organizations serve as the vehicle for the local participation. In this paper, the term "grassroots driven development" (GDD) will be used to describe this type of project. The goals and processes of GDD match the principles of both EJ and the EPA's collaborative model.

In the Black Falls project, the GDD methods and strategies were used to guide the community involvement in a partnership with the EPA. This paper looks at how eight of the central components of GDD were implemented and how they affected the collaboration:

1. Process v Blueprint: Traditional blueprint approaches try to specify project activities and results before the project starts and they do not work well for a collaboration with a grassroots organization. For the Black Falls project, a spiral development process was employed in which the final plans evolved via the interaction of all stakeholders.

2. Agency: In order to work effectively with its partners, the Black Falls community had to evolve from a needs-based or dependency approach to the agencies into an assumption of full responsibility for their own development. This paper documents specific techniques utilized in achieving this transformation, as well as the profound effect of the transformation on the community.

3. Participation: The direct participation of a community in the development process has been described as an instrumental freedom, providing intrinsic value to the community as well as

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improving the execution of the project. This paper discusses ways that the depth of participation was maximized, as well as the impact of the participation in achieving the partnership objectives.

4. Capacity: Building community capacity is a goal of the EJ program in the EPA. The project adopted the philosophy that the community already had the capacity to achieve its goals, and that what was needed was a way to 'actualize' this preexisting capacity. This actualization was achieved using various organizational methods. The end result was to improve the sustainability of the project and enhance the ability of the community for executing future projects.

5. Utilitarianism: Prior to this project, the government agency partners mostly adopted a utilitarian philosophy of delivering the most benefits for the most people. The project sensitized the partners to the concept of providing services to those most in need of assistance.

6. Interlinkages: Prior to the project, the agency partners tended to focus on solving a single problem in a development effort such as providing a water supply. The project helped the partners to understand and respond to the interlinkages between multiple vectors, such as health issues, education, poverty, and environmental issues.

7. Power redistribution: The empowerment of the local community is a goal of both EJ and development organizations. Empowering a grassroots organization redistributes the power in a local community in ways that may not be universally supported. The partnership structures have to anticipate the artifacts from this redistribution.

8. Cultural relevancy: The incorporation of cultural factors into project planning occurred naturally through the community's direction of the process, and the agency partners accommodated these customs. Livestock are an essential part of Diné culture, and some issues in this area were not fully resolved.

This paper outlines a series of methods for empowering a grassroots organization to work effectively in partnerships with government agencies and it makes suggestions to the government agencies how they might improve their operations in these collaborations. The methods are presented as suggestions for the reader to evaluate, as the paper does not offer proof of their effectiveness for two reasons. The first is that the author was a central player in the program and is not in a position to offer objective critique. Secondly, insufficient time has elapsed to determine long-term impacts. What can be stated is that the project achieved its tangible goals, in that the water systems were installed in the homes and the community is working cooperatively to deliver water and maintain the systems. At the conclusion of the project, both communality members and partners in the government agencies stated that the project had been successful not just in achieving its tangible goals, but also in introducing an effective approach for bottom-up development. A final point is that the organization is running effectively two months after the scaffolding has been removed. To the extent that a development planner can play a central role in a project, a key issue is how well the organization functions after the support is withdrawn. In this case, the community has started a new agricultural cooperative, and representatives from Black Falls are working directly with the government agencies concerning outstanding water issues.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is dedicated to the partners who made it possible to the families in Black Fallsto Clancy Tenley and Zoe Heller from US EPA, to Kurt Kesteloot from US IHSto Forgotten People CDC

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Abbreviations

ATSDR: United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease RegistryEJ: Environmental JusticeFP CDC: Forgotten People Community Development CorporationGAO: Governmental Accountability OfficeGDD: Grassroots Driven DevelopmentIHS: Indian Health ServiceIWG: Interagency Working Group on Environmental JusticeNIMBY: Not-in-my-backyard: refers to disputes over siting of development projectsNNDWR: Navajo Nation Department of Water ResourcesNN EPA: Navajo Nation Environmental AgencyNNTC: Navajo Nation Tribal CouncilNTUA: Navajo Tribal Utility AuthorityPPAS: EJ guidelines for public participationRESEP: Radiation Exposure Screening and Education ProgramUSDA: United States Department of AgricultureUS EPA: United States Environmental Protection Agency

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Introduction

This paper resulted from an internship with the Forgotten People Community Development Corporation (FP CDC) conducted between September, 2008, and March, 2009, as part of a program funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The FP CDC is a grassroots organization representing communities in the western half of the Navajo Nation. The communities are spread over almost 2 million acres of remote desert terrain in the northeast of Arizona. Only 3 percent of the families in these communities have electricity and only 10 percent have running water (HR5168, 2004). Most practice a subsistence lifestyle of herding sheep. Many of the older people speak only Dinè, which they use instead of ‘Navajo’ to refer to their tribe and language.

The FP CDC started as a political organization called Sovereign Dinè Nation which advocated on behalf of the Dinè communities subject to forced relocation by the United States government as a result of a land dispute between the Hopi and Navajo tribal governments. The relocation program was begun in 1974 and continued until 2007. From 1966 through 2007, the communities were also subject to the Bennett Freeze, which was issued by Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner Robert Bennett and prevented constructing or repairing homes, water supplies, roads, and other facilities on land that was subject to a land dispute with the Hopi Tribe. With the ending of the relocation program and the lifting of the Bennett Freeze, the group reorganized itself as a community development organization dedicated to the rebuilding of the communities.

The internship position was conceived during a conference on Environmental Justice (EJ) sponsored by the US EPA in Billings, Montana, in June, 2008. Representatives of the EPA approached FP CDC and asked if they would be interested in helping in projects to provide safe drinking water in their communities.

The EPA was involved in a major effort to improve access to safe water on the Navajo Nation as a result of two pressures. The first was a commitment made by the EPA at the 2002 United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in which the US pledged to reduce the number of its citizens lacking access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 50% by 2015 (US01, 2005). The largest concentration of such people was on the Navajo Nation, especially in the communities served by FP CDC. The second was pressure by Congress for the EPA to redress problems resulting from the legacy of uranium mining in the 1950s and 60s. Over 1300 mines remain unclaimed and the leeching of uranium from the slag piles into drinking water supplies was damaging water supplies (McSwain, 2007). The EPA and Indian Health Services prioritized the regions of Black Falls and Dennehotso, where local sources were uranium contaminated and safe water was not available within 10 miles (EPA01, 2008).

Access to water was also one of the highest concerns of FP CDC, and the organization agreed to help in the effort. A project proposal and funding request were submitted and approved by the EPA. The initial proposal was for a needs assessment for all communities, but at a meeting in August, 2008, the EPA asked if instead the project could be restructured as the planning of a short-term solution to getting safe water to Black Falls.

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Over the next few months the project expanded to include the construction of water storage and distribution systems for 10 homes, creation of a community water hauling service, and working with both the EPA and Indian Health Service (IHS) to design sanitation systems for the homes. A map of the community showing the locations of homes, water sources, and abandoned uranium mines is provided in Appendix A. The completion of the construction and launching of the water hauling service was celebrated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on February 24, 2009 attended by representatives of the partner agencies as well as representatives of the Navajo Nation.

The internship involved coordination of the project from the initial planning through the implementation of the systems. The Heller School taught that the role of a developer is to build the capacity of the community to perform their own development, so the internship was not as much process of fulfilling these tasks, but rather of identifying resources in the community and enabling the community to do the work.

The Heller School teaches a participatory "bottom-up" model for community development. These tools and approaches were used through throughout the project. This paper analyzes the application of these tools to the collaboration between the grassroots organization and the EPA.

Description of the sustainable development problem

The internship program was part of an effort to provide safe drinking water to communities in the former Bennett Freeze area on the Navajo Reservation. Over 90% of the homes in this area do not have access to piped water, so that the families must haul their water from other locations (HR5168, 2004). While health risks exist in the storage and transportation methods, the main concerns are the sources being used. While some regulated sources are available, thousands of unregulated water sources (EPA01) are also used on the reservation. These are subject to a variety of chemical and bacteriological contaminants, but most attention was focused on uranium contamination. While this can occur from natural sources, the major threat was contamination arising from the legacy of uranium mining in the region. Resolving that specific threat required a comprehensive solution to providing safe water supply systems for the communities, and this in turn was complicated by the other developmental issues affecting the communities, such as inadequate housing, roads, and poverty. Because the environmental harm was impacting minority communities, the developmental problems were treated as an Environmental Justice issue by the federal government.

Problems faced by the water haulers

Families forced to haul their own water suffer both economic and health impacts. Water hauling serves to trap residents in a circle of poverty. The cost to haul water on the reservation has been estimated at $113 per 1,000 gallons, whereas a Phoenix homeowner pays less than 70 cents for the same amount (Helms, 2007). The constant struggle to meet the most basic human need diverts the human resources needed to overcome poverty in communities where most people live below the poverty line. Some of the health impacts derive from the methods used to transport and store the water. The containers used for transportation are often used for both livestock and drinking water, so that the contaminants in the unsafe sources can be introduced into the drinking water even if the drinking water was collected from a safe source. High levels of bacteriological contaminants are often introduced in the improvised storage

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systems used at the homes, and the containers themselves may be recycled drums formerly used for hazardous chemicals.

The greatest health risks arise from the use of unregulated water sources (EPA02, 2008). A polluted spring or an 80 year-old livestock well may be functioning as an unregulated public water supply. The ability to reach safe watering points will vary according to weather, access to transportation, or health problems, forcing families to rely on unsafe alternatives. Livestock wells are sometimes used for drinking water despite contamination with livestock feces and urine as well as volatile chemicals (NN EPA, 2008).

The major concern is contamination of water sources by uranium. Uranium ore is widespread in the geologic formations underneath the ground, but this poses little health risk because the rocks between the formations and the surface serve as a natural shield. Mine operators extracted nearly 4 million tons of uranium ore from 1944 to 1986 across the NN, which brought the ore to the surface (EPA 02, 2008). When the mines were later abandoned, slag piles were left on the surface, where wind and rain break apart the rocks and the uranium then leeches into the water supplies. The Navajo Nation reports the presence of over 1300 abandoned mines on reservation land alone (McSwain, 2007). Up to 25 percent of the unregulated sources in the western Navajo reservation exceed drinking water standard for kidney toxicants including uranium (deLemos, 2007). The EPA sign attached as Appendix C lists some of the wells with elevated levels of uranium.

Uranium in the drinking water causes multiple health impacts, including lung cancer from inhalation of radioactive particles, as well as bone cancer and impaired kidney function from exposure to radionuclides in drinking water (EPA02, 2008). Before the cause was known, doctors in the region thought they had discovered a genetic disease caused “Navajo Neuropathy”, which was associated with muscular degeneration, ulcers, vision weakness, and other severe health issues (Pasternak, 2006). Cancer rates among Navajo teenagers living near mine tailings are 17 times the national average (Smith, 2008). Reproductive-organ cancers in teenage Navajo girls average seventeen times higher than the average of girls in the United States (Raloff, 2004).

Efforts to Improve Access to Water

Little relief is in sight for the people forced to rely upon water hauling. The Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources has long term plans to construct the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Project serving the eastern half of the reservation, and the Western Navajo Pipeline and other systems for the western half (Leeper,2003). These pipeline projects have not received funding and require water from the overstressed San Juan and Colorado Rivers. The proposed pipelines only connect to existing distribution networks, so any help for water haulers will involve a subsequent round of funding and construction to build out new distribution networks. Even in the best long-term scenario, many homes will never be connected, as the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority requires at least 3 meters per mile of piping added (Leeper,2003).

Efforts to improve access to water are complicated by other factors. Climate change has already brought about the most severe droughts recorded in the 20th century, and climate models suggest the region will become increasingly arid (USGS, 2006). This affects the livestock on which the subsistence economy depends and requires a water supply solution to address the needs of livestock as well as drinking water.

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Poverty is a problem that can cause conventional water supply approaches to fail. For example, pipelines were brought to some homes at the expense of thousands of dollars, but the families still haul water because they do not have cash to pay monthly water bills.

Access to Water as an Environmental Justice Issue

Environmental Justice (EJ) has served as a framework for understanding and prioritizing the problem of access to safe drinking water. The EJ movement began when a grassroots organization in Warren County, North Carolina, complained that poor and minority communities suffered disproportionately from environmental harm from pollution and toxic wastes (London & Sze, 2008). Subsequent academic and governmental studies confirmed this relationship and EJ became understood as a fundamental civil rights issue (Bullard, 1993) (Bullard, 2001) (Gibbs, 2002) (Kuzmiak, 1991) ( Ringquist, 1999) (Villanova, 1994) (Wakefield, 2003). In 1986, President Clinton signed Executive 12898 on February 11, 1994 mandating all federal agencies to incorporate EJ into their operations (Clinton, 1994).

Since the communities without access to safe drinking water are largely poor and minority, EJ became a framework for understanding the problem, and this elevated its priority in the federal government. The national drinking water safety program was explicitly directed to identify and improve EJ issues (Grumbles, 2006). Safe drinking water is an essential part of OECA's commitment to transparent, measurable, and accountable environmental justice in its Strategic Plan for 2006-2011 (Nakayama, 2007). The EPA has made the provision of safe drinking water one of the three priorities for Indian Country for 2008-2010 (EPA 03, 2007). At the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2004, the EPA signed the agreement and set as its targets the reduction of American Indian and Native Alaskan households without access by 50% by 2015 (Ferguson, 2008).

To achieve these goals, an interagency task force was created that included the EPA, the Indian Health Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and USDA. A preliminary assessment by this group suggested that over $3 billion might be needed to meet the targets for providing drinking water and sanitation (Ferguson, 2008).

The Navajo Nation became a focus of these efforts, as 54,000 of its people lack access to a public water system (EPA03, 2008). This was the highest number for any region, and the percentage of homes without this access is highest in the former Bennett Freeze communities served by FP CDC.

At the same time, the EPA was under pressure from Congress to address the clean-up of abandoned uranium sites on the Navajo Nation. A GAO report in 2007 found that the EPA had done little to address the issue and identified the problem as a failure to provide environmental justice as required under law. In Congressional hearings, Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., decried the lack of work on restoring the land on the Navajo reservation.

If a fraction of the deadly contamination the Navajos live with every day had been in Beverly Hills or any wealthy community, it would have been cleaned up immediately. But there's a different standard applied to the Navajo land (Waxman, 2008).

The EJ movement thus provided the framework for identifying the problem – for designating the access to safe drinking water as a high priority for the federal government to address. The centrality of

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grassroots organizations to the EJ movement matches a trend in development theory and practice toward an increasing involvement of the directly affected people in the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of development projects. These approaches should be effective both in improving the effectiveness of projects and in achieving the broader goals of EJ to empower local communities.

Development question

The involvement of an EJ program in providing access to safe drinking water reflects an evolution in the EJ movement. The EJ movement originated as a grassroots effort to protect negative liberties, such as the right of a minority community not to be selected as the site for a hazardous waste disposal facility. In these situations, the relevant aspect of the EPA was its role as a regulator in approving projects permits. The measure of success by a community seeking EJ was its ability to prevent the development of the project in the minority community. EJ was thus a way to empower poor communities in confronting Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) fights (Roberts, 1999). Over the 1990's, the scope of EJ was expanded to include redressing existing problems, such as cleaning up projects under the Superfund program, as site remediation also was shown to involve discriminatory patterns. The framing of access to safe drinking water as an EJ issue shows how EJ is increasingly understood to include positive liberties - situations in which a community has a right to government services.

When services are provided under the mandate of EJ, the processes through which the developments are planned and implemented can be as important as the end result. The primary goal of EJ may be viewed as empowering the disadvantaged communities so that they are treated fairly in regulatory decisions as well as in the provision of services such as safe drinking water and site remediation. If the services are provided from a traditional top-down delivery approach, the grassroots organizations that have created the EJ movement are deprived of power over the process, and a project fails to meet one of the fundamental goals of EJ. A development effort under an EJ mandate has to provide a means for grassroots participation in all aspects of project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. In order to conduct this work effectively, the EPA needs models for grassroots participation in development projects.

Strategies and tools for grassroots participation in development have evolved as a key part of the field of development theory and practices. Up until the 1980s, most community development projects used top-down structures: experts from the development agencies coordinated efforts with national governments to plan and deliver the services. An alternative approach which became known as community driven development (CDD) emphasized the importance of involving the local communities in all phases of the project. Local participation in the project and the building of community capacity improved both the initial development efforts and the long-term sustainability of the projects.

Grassroots driven development (GDD) is defined herein to refer to the subset of CDD projects where a primary role is played by grassroots organizations. The local units referenced in CDD literature can include local governments or various types of local organizations. In GDD, the central community force is a grassroots organization, which is a non-governmental entity organized within the local community where a project takes place often in response to the particular problem to be addressed by the development effort. Grassroots organizations typically provide an effective means by which the people most directly affected by a project can participate in the effort. Tools and strategies for effective GDD have been developed and are taught as a key part of the curriculum at the Heller School for Sustainable

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International Development. These resources can serve as the model for development projects involving collaborations between the EPA and grassroots organizations.

Figure 1 summarizes this history and relationship. The left side shows the initial focus of EJ on negative liberties such as NIMBY fights, where a successful outcome might be blocking a proposed development. As EJ began to an emphasis on pro-active engagement to achieve positive liberties, it became involved in community development projects that might include collaborations between grassroots organizations and government agencies.

The right side of the figure shows the evolution of development theory and practice. The initial pattern of top-down planning and implementation evolved into inclusion of bottom-up approaches such as CDD and GDD. These strategies and tools can be applied to assist with the EJ development projects. The topic of this paper is marked with the 'X', which is an examination of how GDD theories and practices were applied to a collaboration between a grassroots community organization and the EPA.

EPA History of Collaborative Partnership

The need for grassroots participation in the development process was identified early in the history of the EJ movement. The community organizers responsible for many of the campaigns that defined the EJ movement reported that achieving success required a transition from a reactive to proactive role for the grassroots. Instead of responding to violations or commenting on completed environmental impact statements, the directly affected people needed to be engaged at every stage of the development processes affecting their community.

In response, the EPA created the Environmental Justice Collaborative Model. The 15 pilot projects undertaken under that program involved partnerships between many institutional actors from the government, business, and non-profit sectors (EPA05, 2002).The community organizations responsible

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Development Theory & Practice

Environmental Justice

Negative Liberties(NIMBY)

Positive Liberties(Equal access to

services)

Top-Down Development

Bottom-Up Development

Community Development

Projects

Grassroots Driven

DevelopmentX

Figure 1: Grassroots Driven Development:Environmental Justice and Development Theory

for originally identifying the problem were also part of the coalition, so that the collaborative model provided a way for grassroots organizations to become part of the community planning process.

In addition to the collaborative model, the EJ movement stressed the importance of direct participation in all stages of the development process. The recent report card on the EJ movement prepared by United Church of Christ, "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty 1987-2007" recognizes that these ideals have rarely been achieved successfully, but the principles of community capacity building and participation are well-established (Bullard, 2007).

This paper examines how the tools of GDD can be used to improve the implementation of the EPA collaborative model. In particular, it examines how eight key ideas and strategies from GDD were utilized in the project to provide access to safe drinking water to Black Falls. As the project was funded under the EJ program, the ability of the tools to increase community empowerment and participation is just as important as their impact on project efficiency.

Methods

The operative learning method for this project was "learning by doing". The internship was initially going to be a needs assessment, and then was transformed into a planning project for establishing a community water cooperative to install home water systems and supply to the homes. As the community became engaged in the project, they wanted immediate action and they transformed the internship project from planning into actual implementation of a solution.

The learning objective was to improve the understanding of how the participatory approach can be successfully implemented. The daily work of the internship was not the study of the learning objective, but rather the planning and implementation of a community water supply system. The approach used for this project was based on the direct participation of the directly affected people through a partnership between a grassroots organization and the EPA. This participation can be viewed as one of Amartya Sen's instrumental freedoms: the participation was both instrumental in that it made the water supply project more effective, as well as being an end in itself, as a community finds fulfillment when empowered in this way.

The learning methods were interactive: participatory approaches were tried, evaluated, and then adapted in response to events. This process can be divided into two phases. The first was an educational effort to introduce the participatory approach into a community where it was not a part of the development process. The second was the implementation of the water supply project, where the participatory approach was used throughout the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation processes. Both of these efforts served as learning methods to achieve the objective of understanding and improving collaborations between grassroots community organizations and government agencies.

A Community Learns about Participatory Development

While the participatory and collaborative methods taught at Brandeis may be understood and appreciated by developmental organizations, they were not the model used in the Navajo Nation. Project planning and implementation in the region were typically performed by federal and tribal agencies, and the directly affected people had little role other than as consumers of the output. Educating the various

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agencies about the mechanisms and advantages of participatory development was a central part of the development process. At the same time, the people within the grassroots organization had to learn to accept and fulfill the responsibilities associated with participatory development.

This education occurred throughout the six month project, most overtly in meetings with both government officials and the community where explaining the concept was a top agenda item. Each event was a learning opportunity, and the learning method involved establishing the goals, planning and implementing the presentation, and then evaluating the results.

The goals of the educational events were to have the participants understand participatory development and integrate it into the project planning. For the EPA, the concept of participatory development was known, but had not been applied to a water supply project, especially in Indian country. They needed to understand how the participation of the directly affected people could make their projects more successful and how to facilitate this participation. For Navajo Nation agencies, the participation of the community was traditionally performed via the Chapter Houses, and the role of the community was largely limited to attending monthly meetings rather than active participation in project planning, implementation, and evaluation. The Navajo Nation had to learn how direct participation of the people through grassroots organization could help achieve shared objectives such as providing safe drinking water for all citizens. For the people in the community, direct participation required assuming an increasing responsibility, and the educational process involved learning how to transform their individual relationship with their community from reactive to proactive.

The education was not one-sided. The concepts and techniques taught at Brandeis were a valuable resource distilled from the experiences of many development planners, but they had to be adapted into a specific situation and were enhanced by this experience. Many educational events occurred throughout the project, and each event served as a learning experience not just about the effectiveness of various techniques, but also about what a partnership should be. The learning opportunities involved verbal and written presentations, often supplemented by audio visual presentations. For each event a strategy was constructed to achieve the educational goal, and the presentation and materials were prepared accordingly. The evaluation of the event considered whether the educational goal was achieved and sought to integrate new information on how the collaboration should work or could be improved.

The learning method was to use each event as an opportunity to increase understanding of how a collaborative partnership could and should work. Data was collected via audio recordings and photographs of each event, via written responses and follow-up interviews with participants, and via notes of my observations. After each event, the data was evaluated and then integrated into the planning and implementation of the next session.

A Collaborative Project to Provide Safe Water

The value of the GDD tools and strategies was tested in the implementation of a water supply project for Black Falls. The local community was directly involved in every aspect of the project and it functioned as equal partner to the EPA. A primary learning method for the internship was the understanding, evaluation, and improvement of the participatory processes followed in this collaboration.

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The instrumental effectiveness of the GDD approaches can be evaluated as to their contributions in obtaining the tangible goals of the project. These include the planning and construction of the home water systems, the creation of a community water hauling cooperative, interfacing the families into the health care delivery system, educating the community about safe drinking water, and planning the sanitation systems that are part of the long term goals of the community. These tangible goals were achieved in the project, and the learning method included evaluating the contribution of the GDD methods to this success.

The effectiveness of the GDD approaches in achieving the process goals of EJ was also evaluated. EJ requires the community to participate fully in the development process and to enhance the capacity of the community so as to sustain the project and engage in future developments. The learning method included the evaluation of whether the GDD approaches were effective in achieving these goals. The constant feedback as each step was evaluated allowed the participatory methods to be improved and better understood throughout this interval.

Limitations of the Learning Method

The first limitation with "learning by doing" is that the knowledge it reveals is limited to reactions to what was done in a specific situation. In contrast with learning based on a survey of literature or other projects, the results may be too specific to a particular environment. Also, the audience may wish that other approaches could have been tried other than the ones employed.

The second limitation on this learning method is that the information is biased by the subjective evaluation of a participant in the process, so that the lessons that could be learned from the experiences are distorted or lost. One antidote to this problem is the careful documentation of the events in audio recordings, photographs, and written notes and correspondence. This data can form the basis for a more objective interpretation of the results either by the audience or by the author once some distance from the project is achieved.

Ultimately, the hope is that the narrative of these experiences can provide useful knowledge for other grassroots organizations as well as for government agencies participating in similar collaborations.

Literature Review

The project to assist the water haulers utilized a partnership between the EPA and a grassroots organization to create a proactive program to achieve environmental justice in Indian country. The literature review begins with a survey of the historical context. It traces the emergence of the environmental justice movement, focusing on the relationship between grassroots and the EPA. The second section surveys general models for partnerships between government and grassroots. It examines the goals of these projects, how these goals can best be achieved, and how the success of the collaboration can be evaluated. The final section focuses on lessons learned from similar collaborative projects. It begins with an overview of the EPA model for grassroots partnerships and then looks at the lessons learned in previous collaborations.

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The Historical Context

The environmental justice (EJ) movement has historically been a grassroots movement. Johnson (1993) showed how a citizens group in Warren County, North Carolina, created a national awareness of racial bias in the siting of hazardous industrial sites, which ultimately led to President Clinton's issuance of Executive Order 12898. Faber (2001) emphasized that the grassroots nature of the EJ movement was fundamentally different from the environmental institutions at the time it emerged, which consisted almost exclusively of top-down national organizations. Reviews of the history of the EJ movement emphasized the central role of grassroots organizations in identifying and seeking redress from environmental problems, which typically placed them in opposition to federal, state, and local governments (Bullard,2000), (Bulkeley, 2006), (Higgins, 1993). Capek (1993) described how the EJ terminology allowed grassroots organizations to see a national commonality to their interests and how this transformed the national environmental movement.

The first efforts of the EPA to address EJ were largely ineffective because of the lack of experience of federal agencies in working with grassroots organizations. While the EPA was mandated to encourage community participation, little progress was made involving grassroots organizations in the planning and implementation of either development projects or remediation efforts (Mushak, 1993). Foster's (1998) documentation of the struggles of a community group in Chester, PA, against toxic industries showed how the traditional model of citizens groups achieving justice through the judiciary was inadequate and how success required a transition from reactive to proactive strategies. At the same time, other authors were questioning whether grassroots organizations should even play a role in the regulatory process. While Rossi (1998) considered such involvement to be mostly counterproductive, Fisher (2000) was more favorable toward non-expert participation in environmental decision-making and suggested that the experts could learn from the grassroots.

Efforts continued to discover and implement methods for effective public participation. Rowe (2000) established a model for evaluating the effectiveness of various public participation mechanisms and concluded that the public hearings used by the EPA were among the least effective. Foster (2002) described that approach as being the antiquated "announce and defend" model which was being replaced by a new type of collaborative model. Sabel (1999) described the emergence of this devolved collaboration as a revolution in environmental regulation. Foster (2002) cautioned that this decentralization could benefit the entrenched power groups rather than the grassroots.

The idea of a proactive collaboration between grassroots and the EPA to achieve environmental justice was proposed by Lee (2002). Similar grassroots collaborations had worked effectively to address intervention strategies for community health issues and could be used as a model for environmental issues (O'Fallon, 2002). The EPA responded by developing programs through which it would actively support the efforts of grassroots organizations (EPA 04, 2008). This is an ongoing experiment, as the EPA continues to find new ways to support the efforts of grassroots organizations such as supplying grants (EPA-06), providing organizational tools and technical training, and improving access to data (EPA 04, 2008).

The need for EPA collaboration with grassroots organizations is especially acute in Indian country. Robyn (2002) found that the 561 federally recognized Indian reservations are the most environmentally

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degraded areas in rural America. Williams (1990) listed the negative health impacts due to mining, waste dumping, and lack of access to safe water. While Zaferatos (2006) described an activist role of the Swinomish tribal government to protect its environment from waste dumping, Churchill (1992) emphasized that tribal governments have historically been closely tied with the interests of corporations and, as owners of all land and mineral rights on the reservations, were usually active partners in development projects. Lamson(2004) contrasted the top-down organization of tribal governments installed under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1936 to the community consensus models of traditional indigenous societies, and suggested that the grassroots approach would resonate in these communities.

Government/Grassroots Partnership Models

The collaboration between the Forgotten People CDC and the EPA is an example of a broader trend of governments working with grassroots organizations. Several authors have tried to establish theoretical frameworks for understanding these collaborations. Samuel (1989) looks at the use of these collaborations as a tool for development agencies involved in poverty alleviation, where the goals to be achieved through the partnership would be efficiency, cost-sharing, capacity building, and empowerment. The instruments he identified for creating the partnership involve options available to the development agency, such as the use of its field workers as the community mobilizers. The problem faced by a grassroots organization when trying to create partnerships with government agencies were not considered in any of the articles reviewed.

Milne (1996) interviewed the participants in 295 collaborations between environmental organizations and the government. The authors explore several hypotheses, such as whether the non-profit groups thought they improved their political position more by collaborating with the government or other non-profits, or whether inter-sector relationships tended to be more formal. No framework is established to provide guidance to participants in partnerships.

Fredericksen (2000) provides a theoretical framework for modeling partnerships that generates a range of practical recommendations. The authors examine the use of private non-profit organizations to deliver government services from the critical perspective of whether this type of collaboration is an effective way to provide these services. They identify the strengths of the non-profits as being rapid implementation, customization to local requirements, and ability to reach populations not reachable to the government. They then raise concerns about the relationships: how the governments agencies lose accountability for their work, and how the non-profits can get diverted from their primary job of serving the citizens' interests. The authors create a checklist for predicting whether a non-profit organization would be successful in a collaborative project, including ties to the community where the service is provided, fiscal and management capacities, relevant prior experience, and adequate space and equipment.

Lasker (2001) establishes a flexible, powerful, and practical model for analyzing and evaluating partnerships. The authors base their analysis on the idea of synergy. Their thesis begins with the assertion that the purpose of a partnership is to accomplish what the individual agencies could not do as well on their own. The first step is to establish the goals of the partnership. The authors then establish procedures for determining whether the collaboration is better than individual efforts at achieving these goals. They identify factors contributing to the collaborative advantage and develop ways to evaluate the

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proximal outcome while the partnership is in progress. These in turn become a set of guidelines for improving the management of the partnership.

Syme (1994) and Rowe (2004) also examine procedures for evaluating whether a collaboration was better than the alternatives. Syme establishes a two part process, which begins by establishing the definition of effectiveness. Effectiveness may be measured by the outcome or by the process, and different parties may have different goals. The next step is to operationalize the definition: to create ways to measure the effectiveness as thus defined. Rowe adds a third step, which is to review the evaluation and see if there is a general mechanism to be identified. The authors survey 32 papers evaluating the success of various collaborations between the government and the public. They found that the evaluations were subjective and contextualized - rarely useful outside the limited scope of the individual project.

EPA/Grassroots Partnerships

Current literature about structuring and evaluating partnerships between grassroots and EPA consists primarily of EPA documents and project reports, with few details about efforts in Indian country. A 1996 report established practical EJ guidelines for public participation (PPAS, 1996). It established important core values about the right of the public to participate in decisions, but most of the recommendations dealt with the procedures for conducting public meetings rather than collaborative relationships.

A follow up document in 2000 outlined procedures for collaboration with Indigenous groups (IPS, 2000). While it stated that the rights of individuals in tribal lands should not be less than the rights of the general population, it reworded the 1996 document so as to reduce the recommendations for advance notification, length of meetings, formalization of the participation process, and evaluating the effectiveness of the participation process.

The operation of the collaborative model was outlined in 2002 (EPA05, 2002). The program began as a series of demonstration projects, without a clear model for establishing goals or operating procedures and without a means of evaluating the collaborations. These projects were then analyzed, and the model was built from these experiences. The model identifies five key steps: issue identification, capacity building, strategic planning, implementation, and replication. It identifies high-level strategies for success at each step. Reports from each demonstration project are included in the EPA document's appendix, but they provide high level project descriptions rather than useful details about the collaborative process.

Some lessons learned from previous collaborations between the EPA and grassroots organizations are provided in several papers. Wilson (2007) describes a collaboration to address environmental hazards facing a North Carolina community. The organizational structure placed the WERA grassroots organization as the controlling partner directing workgroups in which other stakeholder agencies were participants. The EPA was the funder, but not a member of the coalition or working groups. Loh (2002) reports on a campaign in Massachusetts to increase awareness of airborne pollution as a contributor to asthma. The report emphasized the enhancements of community capacity that resulted from their participation in the project, a key benefit of collaboration that can be missed when applying the efficiency models of Fredericksen or Lasker. Genskow 's (2006) review of a watershed management

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project shows how local participation allowed the government agencies to identify key environmental interrelationships that would otherwise have been missed.

The anecdotes frequently embedded within these articles made it clear that grassroots organizations that partner with government agencies share many challenges, but the published literature provides few useful guides to the process. Especially lacking are analyses from the perspective of the grassroots organizations, that could assist other grassroots organizations in achieving the goals of their communities by means of these relationships. This paper hopes to fill this void by relating lessons learned in a collaboration within the Navajo Nation.

Discussion

The Partners

The Black Falls water project was a collaboration between the US EPA and a coalition of families in the Black Falls region of the Navajo Nation. The coalition was organized and supported by Forgotten People CDC (FP CDC), a community organization based in Tuba City, AZ, with guidance from an academic partner, which was the Capacity Building Initiative at the Heller School for Social Policy, Brandeis University.

The relationship was structured according to a collaborative model developed by the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (IWG) within the US EPA (EPA05, 2002 ) for the purpose of creating "dynamic and proactive partnerships among community-based organizations, business and industry, non-governmental organizations, government, and academic institutions”(p.9) .

The partnership was not a separately incorporated entity. The US EPA provided funding under an Environmental Justice grant program, served as a liaison to other federal and tribal agency partners, and provided continual advice and support throughout the project. They attended frequent meetings concerning the project with the community, as well as with the other agency partners.

Forgotten People was the recipient of the grant and coordinated the arrangements for the intern who managed the project. Don Yellowman from FP CDC served as the moderator of the community meetings and the lead role in meetings with agency partners. Activities at Black Falls were reported back to the weekly Monday night meetings of FP CDC which occurred in Tuba City and where additional outreach for various health and water safety issues occurred.

The Black Falls community was not organized prior to the project. Once the project started, they held meetings every Sunday where they would develop strategies, plan the project, monitor and evaluate events of the previous week, and learn more about various health and safety issues. Representatives from the US EPA as well as the other partners attended some of the meetings which provided the agencies with direct contact with the community.

Several other government and private partners were involved in the project or contributed to it substantially. The US Indian Health Service (IHS) contributed equipment used for the home water supply systems in the project, constructed a pipeline that served as an access point for the water haulers, and is overseeing the construction of solar cisterns and sanitation systems at some of the homes. The

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Navajo Department of Water Resources plays a key strategic role in the planning of infrastructure projects and had several meetings with community representatives. Private groups such as a Home Depot store in Flagstaff and Piedmont Community Church made generous contributions to the project. The table in Appendix B lists the key partners and contributors and summarizes their roles in the project

The Work

The general goal of the partnership was to assist families in Black Falls who do not have access to piped water and instead must haul their water from remote locations. During the six month project, water systems were designed and installed in 10 homes. These systems provided a 210 gallon exterior elevated water tank which fed a kitchen counter and sink assembly installed within the home. When coupled with the use of a trailer and pumping system that were acquired during the project, the systems enabled the families to replace the system of buckets and siphoning formerly used for transportation, storage, and distribution. The systems provide safe and convenient access to drinking water and form the first step in a longer term plan which will eventually provide full sanitation, underground storage, and hot water.

The project also involved educational outreach concerning safe water as well as efforts to interface residents with health care programs that target residential exposure to uranium contamination. The community outreach also assisted the US EPA in fulfilling other program objectives, such as identifying the use of unsafe water sources, assisting in the monitoring and evaluation of various programs, and learning more about the challenges facing families that haul their water.

The project was designed and installed by the community cooperative with the assistance from the various partners. As part of an EJ program, the building of community capacity and implementation of fully participatory development practices were equally if not more important than the construction of the physical systems.

A key objective of the project was to identify organizational, developmental, and technical approaches that can be replicated to solve similar problems in other communities. This paper adopts a developmental perspective for analyzing the effectiveness of the collaboration and discusses how eight elements from development theory were implemented during the project.

1: Process v Blueprint

While the general goal of assisting the water haulers was constant throughout the project, the specific project plan was rewritten several times. Brunsson (2000) showed how blueprint approaches that try to specify the results and activities before a project starts are poorly suited to projects involving capacity development. Potts (2002) outlined a spiral process that allows constant redesign while gradually converging toward the plan that ultimately achieves the project goals. The process approach was adopted and worked effectively.

The Black Falls water project went through multiple plans. The initial proposal that was accepted for the EJ grant involved a needs assessment for drinking water throughout the former Bennett Freeze area. In a conversation Clancy Tenley, the interface for the US EPA over the project, the proposal was amended in August, 2008, to focus on a creating a plan for a solution for Black Falls rather than assessing needs. In a series of community meetings in Black Falls in September, the families complained that too many

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studies had taken place and no solutions had been delivered. They requested that the project be directed toward achieving an immediate and tangible result rather than a plan. The community said that they would help cover the costs of the planning and they wanted to use the US EPA funds for materials.

A comprehensive plan was drafted for building home water systems and establishing a water hauling cooperative. This proposal was circulated in October to the agency partners and stimulated discussions among them about possible programs to assist the water haulers. The proposal, however, conflicted with the guidelines of the funding program both in the use of funds for construction, which was prohibited, and in requiring additional funding beyond the $20,000 grant. This led to a revised plan in December with a lower cost design for the home systems and deferral of the water hauling service. At the request by John Leeper on December 2, 2008, a design for sanitation systems was added to the project requirements.

The home distribution systems were constructed at 10 homes during February, 2009. Community labor was supplemented with help from the staff at the Home Depot in Flagstaff who adopted the project as a community service program and from graduate students from Brandeis who attended an 'alternative spring break' program. A 'waterboy' baffled transport tank and pumping system were purchased and installed on a rebuilt trailer so as to provide a water distribution system for the homes accessible through better roads, and a separate tank and pumping system was acquired for use with 4-wheel drive pick-up trucks for the more remote homes.

The community obtained the immediate tangible result of water systems in each home and the agency partners received a comprehensive study of sanitation options for off-grid homes. In addition, community capacity was enhanced and educational outreach programs were successfully completed.

Other than the conflicts with the guidelines of the grant program, all stakeholders were fully supportive of the spiral development process. The US EPA's collaborative model (EPA 05, 2002) for grassroots partnerships emphasizes the dynamic nature of their relationships, and the agency personnel made every effort to keep up with the rapid pace of the changes. The Black Falls families were satisfied by the process, as they controlled it. Each step resulted from strategic decisions made in the weekly community meetings in response to additional developments or information received from the other stakeholders.

The process-based planning strategy resulted in both more efficient delivery of services as well as increased community satisfaction and ownership of the project. These benefits would not have been possible using a blueprint approach.

2: Agency

The community organizing philosophy for the Black Falls water project was based on Paulo Freire's (1970) statement that "it is essential for the oppressed to realize that when they accept the struggle for humanization they also accept, from that moment, their total responsibility for the struggle" (p. 68). Prior to the project, the families typically adopted a reactive needs-based approach to development issues, wherein they functioned as consumers of a government service system that was not effective at servicing their needs. Freire's philosophy guided the organizers from FP CDC, so that the people learned to take proactive responsibility for their community and to use partnerships to assist them in

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providing the services that were needed. Becoming the agents of their own development had the properties of Sen's instrumental freedoms, in that it provided both intrinsic value and a tool to achieve the other project goals.

A meeting on August 10, 2008, first brought together the US EPA, the Black Falls families, and representatives from FP CDC. The families were effective in communicating their need for water – the US EPA official afterward mentioned that he had never been so thirsty in his life as after the meeting.

Over the next six months, this needs-based approach would give way to a new approach based on Freire's work. The Black Falls community had long meetings every Sunday, where they not only planned their project, but also discussed the process of development.

Complaints were replaced by stakeholder analysis. One device used in this process was the use of a metaphor "don't bring old baggage into the meetings". The community had many complaints resulting from long-standing relationships with agencies like the BIA and IHS. In the internal preparatory meetings, they learned to identify their current goals and to separate these from problems in the past that could not be addressed in the current relationship. The tools of stakeholder analysis were developed so that the community could understand what were reasonable goals to be achieved within each relationship. The mandates and regulations affecting the agencies were examined, as well as the competing interests that the agencies needed to balance. This enabled the community to develop strategies in preparation for each meeting.

Another frequently used metaphor at the meetings was "roll up your sleeves". This was offered as the solution every time an obstacle was presented at a community meeting. The people learned that the way to achieve their objectives was through their own efforts rather than relying on external institutions or other people.

The language of supplication was replaced by the vocabulary of community driven development. Understanding expressions like "sustainability", "access to information", "participation", "partnership", and "stakeholder" does more than provide effective ways to describe development issues in discussions with partners – it also made the people aware of rights they have and strategies for addressing their problems. These terms were used within the community meetings, and the people were then comfortable in using them in meetings with partners.

The transformation had a positive effect on the relationship with the agency partners. An example occurred in a community meeting on February 16, 2009, when Kurt Kesteloot, the engineer from IHS, mentioned that the agency may only have funding to install sanitation systems for 4 of the 10 homes involved in the project. One of the men then asked, "if we do all the plumbing ourselves, will that allow you to fund more of the homes ?". While this was not allowed under the program guidelines, the efforts of the people to find innovative joint solutions contributed to positive partnership relations.

The contrast in development styles was visible in a series of meetings between Black Falls representatives and a charitable organization that had been delivering water to 500 homes on the eastern part of the Navajo Nation for 24 years. The US EPA had set up the meetings to allow the Black Falls community to learn about the costs and other issues in operating a delivery service. When asked about building community capacity, the manager of the charity said they did not have time – they were too

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busy delivering water. In the community debriefing after the meeting, one of the grandmothers stated that the recipients of the water "just had their hands out."

The participants in the Black Falls had to contribute sweat equity – not just in the construction of the water systems for their own homes, but in contributions to other homes and to community projects such as preparing food for meetings. The contributions were enforced by the other community members. When one resident showed up after missing several meetings, a grandmother immediately handed him a broom and ordered him to go sweep out the meeting house. The Black Falls project received contributions from many partners – both federal and tribal agencies as well as private organizations and individuals. They also gave back to these partners, such as when they provided food, entertainment, and other support for Brandeis students who helped on the project between February 22-28, 2009. By taking control over their project and assuming full responsibility for its success or failure, the community fulfilled Freire's requirements and enjoyed the instrumental freedom of agency.

3: Participation

The participation of the directly affected people in projects affecting their community is one of Sen's instrumental freedoms (1999). The direct participation of the community in the development was different from previous projects in the region. The participation had an instrumental value in improving the delivery of government services as well as providing an intrinsic value to the community.

Many of the people spoke only Dine, so participation in meetings required translation. This was done in ways intended to remove the social barriers to participation described by Oakley (1991). An English exchange with an agency partner would be translated in a time consuming process. The people would ask the translator questions about each word to make sure they fully comprehended the meaning. They would discuss among themselves, and only after everyone was fully in agreement would they signal to the translator to resume the English discussion. This process allowed community members to incorporate the new knowledge into their own world view.

The participation of the people was further enhanced by enforcing the highest level of transparency. The agency partners typically preferred the efficiency of meeting with a few key representatives of an organization rather than the membership. If that was necessary, every aspect of the meeting would be reported. When acceptable to the partner, this was done by recording the meeting and playing back for the full community.

Every effort was made to get the agency partners out of their offices to attend the community meetings so that the people could speak directly. Some officials were nervous about doing this, but ultimately found the experience enjoyable, even if it was time-consuming. These encounters were designed to bring the officials into the lives of the people. The families would cook food and share stories, so that the partners became friends. The partnerships were not business dealings, but rather were the forging of an enlarged community to reach common objectives.

One result of the participation was to improve the US EPA's educational programs by providing in-depth communication with the target audience which identified new issues. In the meeting on August 11,

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2008, the community described how the barrels used for transporting water were often recycled drums originally holding hazardous materials and that the families often used the same containers for transporting livestock water and drinking water. In the meeting on November 18, 2008, one family described how they used uranium contaminated water for cooking because they thought that they only needed to use the expensive safe water for drinking. The US EPA learned about other reasons that contaminated water was still being used extensively, such as transportation or health issues that prevented the families from hauling water. In addition to the educational value to the Black Falls residents from these sessions, the feedback identified weaknesses in the educational outreach program that needed to be addressed in all communities.

The participation improved the implementation of the program of agency partners by providing monitoring and evaluation. Various agencies were responsible for posting notifications about contaminated wells both at the chapter houses and on the wells themselves. The community identified places where signs were missing and where families incorrectly thought the water was safe. The people identified errors in educational programs, such as where chapter officials had told people that contaminated water was safe if it was boiled or incorrectly identified contaminated wells as being safe. The people identified problems in the some of the pipeline projects, where people stopped drinking the pipeline water because of problems in the palatability or colorization that led them to question its safety.

The participation allowed the agency partners access to a population with which they had little previous contact. Some of the people reached for the uranium screening program had never had medical check-ups. By talking directly to the water haulers from remote homes, the US EPA learned about the problems they face and could use this data to improve the infrastructure planning.

The participation allowed more efficient planning and implementation of the water and sanitation systems for Black Falls. The use of coop labor and private partners allowed government resources to be leveraged. The highly mobilized community enabled rapid implementation, so that the initial home water systems were deployed within a few months after the start of the project. The community identified ways that the design of the sanitation systems could be improved, such as using waterless toilets to reduce the amount of water that has to be hauled to the remote homes.

While the participation had an instrumental value to the agency partners, the direct involvement was an important freedom for the community. In Diné, k'e refers to restoring dignity, respect, and worthiness and hózjó refers to restoring right relations. These concepts are central to Diné culture, and direct participation in the processes affecting their homes and community is essential to achieve these goals. The process restored the traditional relationships of the society:

In traditional Navajo society, everyone was equal. There was no strong "chief" who heard a dispute and made a decision for others. In fact, the idea of someone with power and authority making decisions for others is entirely contrary to Navajo morals. We believe in a high degree of freedom, but we call it "freedom with responsibility" (Yazzie, 1997, p. 2).

The value of participation to the people was shown in the sacrifices they made in order to participate. They traveled long distances over difficult terrain to reach the weekly meetings. Some of the better off families would bring extra cans of gasoline to help others be able to return home afterward. Taking time away from their livestock was dangerous – while Caroline Tohannie was at a community meeting on February 17, 2008, five mountain lions entered her corral and killed 13 of her sheep.

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The barriers to participation had to be communicated to the agency partners. The people live at great distances from each other and few have telephones. To set up a meeting requires many days of work to contact everyone, and then it may require them days to arrange transportation, protection for their animals, and other steps needed to attend. In the early stage of process, agency partners rescheduled meetings with short notice without understanding the difficulties this would impose on the community. These issues were discussed in a community meeting and resolved.

4: Capacity

The building of community capacity is a cornerstone of modern development theory (Hailey, 2006). It is also a major component of the environmental justice program under which the US EPA grant was received. A theme at Black Falls was that the community already had the necessary capacity. What was needed was a way to focus and apply it effectively, which might be called "capacity actualization".

One way that capacity can be actualized is to look first to the community when resources are needed. The traditional development practice in the region looked at the people as the objects of development. Instead, the people themselves are the means through which the problems are solved. When any skill was needed for the project, whether to repair a vehicle, design a bathroom, or plan a menu, the community would find someone in the community or a relative who had the capability. When materials were needed, the people would figure out a way to obtain it. They created action plans rather than wish lists. An example was how the water hauling trailer was assembled. A partner had contributed funds, but they were not sufficient to buy everything new. One person contributed a broken trailer, another contributed skills and tools to repair it. The donated funds were used to buy a new tank, pump, and tires. The community contributions saved over $1,000 and created community ownership of the system.

A second technique for actualizing capacity was by giving community members responsibility for difficult tasks so that each person was fully challenged. Each person in the organization at some point had to carry out a responsibility that was important to the success of the project, such as planning a meal for 30 people or delivering the materials to 10 work sites. This responsibility helped give each member of the community a sense of ownership over the project.

The actualization of the community capacity increased the sustainability of the initial water systems. The home water systems were largely designed by Ronald Tohannie, whose home was one of the 10 serviced by the program. Other community members participated in the construction of the systems, so that full understanding of the system is widespread. The community thus has local resources to maintain the systems. This was important to the IHS, as they had difficulties maintaining a previous installation of the solar cisterns which were to be installed in the second phase of the project. The ability of the community to sustain the systems was a factor in the decision of the agency partners to install several cisterns using new solar technology rather than restricting the initial deployment to two test sites.

The project also enhanced the economic capacity of the community. The economic welfare of the families will be improved by having a low-cost community owned and maintained means for hauling water as a result of the building of the community water trailer. During the project, the families also developed the tool of sponsoring Bingo games when they needed to raise money for various parts of the

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project. These were successful and can be replicated if the community needs small amounts of funding in the future.

The social capacity of the community was also enhanced through enhanced cooperation between families. Working collectively on the water project carried over into other activities, such as insuring that the elderly families were adequately stocked with firewood and water. While some amount of cooperative behavior was always an element of the community, many people remarked on the increased levels of such behavior when performing project evaluations on February 24, 2008.

The project also served as a healing role for the community in response to the damage done by 42 years of the Bennett Freeze, which prohibited families in the area from performing any repairs or improvements on their homes. The impact of this government policy on the social fabric of the community may have been even more destructive than on the housing infrastructure, as it destroyed the personal agency needed to maintain healthy communities. Joining together in the planning and implementation of a large project helped restore this health.

5: Utilitarianism

The Black Falls water project introduced non-utilitarian ideas into the development paradigms of the partners in federal and tribal agencies. Hutcheson (1725) first outlined the utilitarian philosophy " that action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers " (p. 261-321). In the context of water planning on the Navajo Nation, the dominant attitude at the start of the project was best expressed by Michael Koehmstedt of the IHS, who was managing the pipeline construction projects. On August 10, 2008, he met with the Black Falls families who live in remote areas and wanted to obtain safe access to drinking water. He explained that his goal was to service the most people at the least cost, which could be achieved by targeting families that lived in clusters. Remote people like the Black Falls residents were too expensive to service, so they were not of interest to the agency. This was not a new message – the families had received the same response from various chapter and tribal agencies for many years.

An alternative to utilitarianism was provided by Rawls (1971) argument that a society should be judged by the position of the least well off, and an inefficiency was acceptable if it improved the position of those in the worst position. Atkisson (1999) applied the principle to development programs to emphasize the importance of targeting programs to those in greatest need. This targeting principle has been adopted by the Word Bank (Mkandawire, 2005).

The particular need that directed the attention of the US EPA to Black Falls was the uranium contamination of local water supplies. This concern superseded the normal utilitarian equations used to prioritize water projects. In addition, the water haulers living in isolated sites in remote areas could also qualify as being in the worst position due to poverty. They live in these sites because they are subsistence herders on land with limited carrying capacity, so that their incomes are among the lowest in the United States. An event during the project illustrated the difference from mainstream America. Workers from Home Depot had uncrated the counter units being installed in the homes and asked if they should haul away the boxes for disposal. The families said they would dispose of them. One man took the cardboard and used it as flooring to cover the dirt floor of his house.

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The activity in Black Falls focused the attention of the US EPA and other agency partners on the plight of the water haulers who are too remote to be considered for pipeline access. The project proposals outlined low-cost approaches for providing in-home water systems and establishing water hauling services. These proposals were the subject of discussion in meetings of the multi-agency task force looking at water and infrastructure projects for the Navajo Nation, and different members of the group began looking at creative approaches to the problem. An engineer for the IHS proposed a design for solar-powered cisterns, and the US EPA worked out a plan with chapter houses to create a large-scale water hauling service.

The most significant step was the approval by the IHS and US EPA for the use of infrastructure access funds for home storage systems. The previous policy was summarized by John Leeper (1970), Branch Manager for the NN DWR:

The Indian Health Service assumes that above a certain expense, homes become infeasible to serve from a public water system, and the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority will not accept operation of a system with fewer than three meters per mile. So, many families on the Navajo Nation will be hauling water for a long, long time (p. 27 ).

The "three meter" rule was based on an IHS policy to provision up to $18,000 per home for connecting to a public water supply. At a construction cost of $10/foot, a mile of pipeline costs about $50,000, so that three homes per mile were needed to justify the investment (Kesteloot, 2009) The agency partners decided that the construction of a solar-powered cistern was an acceptable use of the access funds for homes too remote for pipeline access. Approximately $200,000 in funds that had been targeted for construction of a pipeline extension from Leupp to Dilkon were then redirected to provide cisterns and sanitation for the families in Black Falls.

The project will serve as a template for eventual replication to other communities. While the US EPA will continue to prioritize communities where ground water sources are uranium contaminated, the project has helped create a general commitment toward helping the families in remote locations who cannot get access to pipelines. The narrow doctrine of utilitarianism has expanded to include commitments to those in greatest need.

6: Interlinkages

The Black Falls water project introduced a more holistic approach to development than had been applied to previous projects on the Navajo Nation involving the agency partners. The project implementation was strongly influenced by the work of Amartya Sen (2000), which stresses the interrelationship of economic, social, health, environmental, education, and other components. Each of the instrumental freedoms is not only important as an end in itself, but also supplements and reinforces the others. To be successful, a development program can not attack one vector in isolation, but rather must understand and address the interlinkage with other issues.

The more traditional approach to development in the Navajo Nation solves a single problem in each program, and water access projects typically did not look beyond the issue of providing a safe access point and regulating the supply. While the US EPA might have initially approached the Black Falls

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project from that perspective, they became increasingly involved in responding to a wide range of health, economic, and other factors.

The US EPA initially did not consider health issues within the mandate of the project. The structure of the initial community outreach program was discussed in a meeting on October 5, 2008. The community project leaders were concerned about the health effects of radiation exposure and wanted to include questions to the community about this. The US EPA stated that this was not possible due to regulations on the collection of heath data, and they requested that the outreach efforts focus exclusively on water issues. At insistence of the community representatives, the US EPA agreed that health issues could be mentioned in general questions about health care delivery and history that did not violate the data collection regulations.

The 10 families that were visited reported a wide range of illnesses that had been associated with radiation in some clinical studies, such as cancer, thyroid, and kidney problems. Two children of one family had been raised on arsenic-contaminated water from Tohatchi Spring and suffered mental retardation, which has been correlated with the condition in clinical studies, while two other siblings raised away from the community were normal. No doctor had ever asked any of these families about their water supply or possible exposure to radiation, despite the fact that they all lived in the high-cancer "black diamond" area identified in studies by Northern Arizona University (2008) of uranium impacts on residential health.

Upon receiving this information, the EPA took action and helped arrange for specialists in uranium exposure from the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to give presentations at Tuba City Hospital for doctors in the regional health care system. The doctors learned how to identify and respond to signs of possible radiation exposure as part of their daily work. The Black Falls representatives then worked closely with the ATSDR and North Country Health Care to enable the doctors to reach the community. A meeting set up by FP CDC in Tuba City on January 26, 2009 allowed ATSDR personnel to present information to 80 people. Most of the families received radiation screenings. One grandmother was qualified for a $50,000 award from a federal radiation exposure compensation fund due to her thyroid cancer and others are still being evaluated.

The work with the community revealed a strong correlation between poverty and lack of access to safe drinking water. One family lived near a contaminated well and did not own a car, so that they had no alternative except to drink from the well. While residents of Flagstaff pay 29 cents for a 100 gallons of water, Leupp Chapter house sells water to water haulers for $25 per hundred gallons. Many of the nearby water haulers instead get their water for free from a contaminated well at the El Paso-Leupp station.

The US EPA recognized the link between poverty and unsafe water and enacted programs to address it. It worked with the IHS to set up at distribution point at Black Falls Church where water haulers can obtain water for one cent per gallon. It is also working with chapter houses to establish low cost water hauling services.

Like many other developmental issues, providing access to safe water requires a holistic understanding of the situation. Close involvement with the local community allowed the government agencies to identify these interlinkages and improve their service delivery.

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7: Power redistribution

Community driven development (CDD) changes who receives benefits and who manages programs. Prior literature evaluates whether this change improves the success of programs (Fredericksen & London, 2000) and the impact of the change on communities (Lachelle & Cable, 1994). Mansuri (2003) points out that CDD may result in lower leakage of resources due to corruption and rent-seeking activity. Jorgensen (2006) describes the situation in Indian country:

Tribal politics revolve around the politicians that can farm the federal system most effectively. Native nation citizens compete with one another (often through contentious factional battles) for access to the programs with funding and for jobs in government... The results are destructive of effective governance and economic development (p.5).

While the focus of prior literature is on the effectiveness of CDDs in comparison to traditional top-down management approaches, these issues also have a significant impact on the implementation. Mosse (2001) points out that the projects can threaten the status quo because they "interact with already contested domains of power and meaning" (p. 20). While a project may be a well-intentioned effort to maximize the benefits to a community and to distribute those benefits fairly, it may face opposition from those who prefer the existing power structure.

One potential source of conflict for grassroots driven development (GDD) is with the chapter houses, which are the local governing bodies for the communities. To prevent conflicts from emerging, representatives of the community visited four chapter houses early in the program to describe the project. Since the US EPA grant was part of an environmental justice program limited to private community organizations, the project was not diverting revenues that would otherwise go to chapter houses. At Leupp, Tolani Lake, and Tonalea, the presentation was well received. The chapters passed resolutions supporting the project and expressing their interest in replicating the program in their communities.

The presentation at Cameron chapter showed the potential for territorial conflicts. Prior to the presentation, representatives from Black Falls met with the chapter president, who agreed to support the project. The beginning of the presentation at the public meeting was interrupted by other officials, who prevented information about the project from being presented. Instead, they demanded that the community turn over the grant revenues to them and they attacked members of the community who had chosen to participate in the program. As the chapter had no jurisdiction over the project, the failure to establish a positive working relationship did not materially impact the first implementation phase, but it illustrates the political problems that can arise.

The effect of the power redistribution from the CDD project on the social fabric of the local community also created challenges. The power within the project was exercised using a consensus model as done in traditional Diné society. Issues were discussed and resolved in weekly meetings to which all community members were invited and where all had an equal voice. The equalization of power was not well received by members who previously enjoyed preferred relationships with chapter authorities or government agencies. In addition, one of the families initially participating in the project was involved

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in a long-running grazing range dispute with other families in the group. This family then attempted to disrupt the project so as to prevent the others from receiving benefits.

While these incidents did not block the success of the project, they illustrate how the situation described by Mosse (2003) can affect a collaborative partnership. The government agencies have obligations to support local governance and to avoid taking sides in factional disputes, but the empowering of grassroots organizations is a principle of EJ which they are also obligated to respect. The artifacts of power redistribution need to be anticipated at the beginning of a partnership and strategies need to be developed that protect and advance the interests of all stakeholders.

8: Cultural Relevancy

Nurse (2006) defines culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development, and Kwak(2002) emphasizes the importance of incorporating cultural factors such as traditions, values, customs, and beliefs into the project planning. For the Black Falls project, these elements were inherently included because the community directed the project and incorporated these elements into their planning. The agency partners were supportive of the inclusion of these factors and tried to accommodate them.

The operating procedures within the community incorporated the values of the local community. They began the weekly meetings with traditional prayers in Diné. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the completion of the project, a water blessing was done. It was explained to the agency partners that water is sacred, and that the delivery of drinking water is the giving of a sacred resource and not just a utilitarian function.

The agency partners adjusted to traditional Diné customs. At one meeting, an official was sorting through papers while a grandmother was speaking in Diné. She stopped her presentation to remind him that in their culture, it was respectful to look at the speaker. Officials who attended community meetings abandoned their hopes for a two hour meeting in deference to the Diné custom that allows every attendee to speak their mind fully before adjournment.

The only unresolved cultural issues concerned livestock, which are central to the culture. The first issue began with a NAU study (2008) found that some of the livestock in the area were contaminated with uranium, where the levels of contamination were correlated with the proximity to the abandoned uranium mines that are prevalent in the community. The people were told not to eat the animals, although no way was provided to tell which animals were contaminated. A general prohibition denies them the right to fulfill a key part of their culture, so that they ignored the warning. A more effective solution might be to provide a means to identify specific animals and to specify a set of preventative actions that could avoid future problems. The US EPA mandate to provide safe water does not extend to livestock, so that no efforts are made to provide safe supplies even when the animals are known to bioaccumulate the toxins. The US EPA views this as an economic issue outside their jurisdiction, without understanding the central role played by the animals in the Diné religion and culture.

Conclusion and Implications

The six month Black Falls Water Project was completed at the end of February, 2009. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of the home water systems was held on February 24, and the success of the

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project was evaluated in meetings between the community and the agency partners at that time. Reports from the community in the subsequent two months provide additional information for evaluation. These sources do not constitute an adequate evaluation process. Insufficient time has elapsed since the completion of the project to evaluate the long-term residual effects, and an evaluation prepared by a key participant in the project is not an impartial review. Subject to these limitations, some conclusions about the project will be drawn and the implications for future replicability will be considered.

Measurements of Success

The project plans that were submitted to the EPA defined metrics for success that were achieved in the project. Water storage and distribution systems were successfully installed in 10 homes and are currently in use by the families, providing safe and convenient access to drinking water. Two separate water transportation systems were built and are shared by the community as part of a water delivery cooperative that continues to function. Several community members were fully trained in the construction of the water systems and could direct projects to replicate the systems in other communities and maintain the systems already installed. An educational outreach program about drinking water safety reached every member of the community. Technical papers concerning the design of sanitation systems for off-grid homes were prepared and delivered to the agency partners. The community is actively engaged in working with these partners in the next stage of the long term project, which will involve construction of underground storage and sanitation systems in the home. By these tangible measurements, the project was successful, and the development processes followed in the project could also be considered successful to the extent that they contributed to this success.

The synergy model proposed by Lasker (2001) can also be used to evaluate the success of the collaboration between the grassroots organization and the EPA. This model looks at the goals of the partnership and evaluates whether these goals were better achieved via the partnership than could have been done individually. In addition to the tangible targets specified in the project plans, the EJ collaborative model which served as the basis for the relationship adds general goals to be achieved in all projects. These include building the capacity of the community so as to be able to meet future challenges and developing strategic long term plans.

The tangible goals, capacity building, and strategic planning were accomplished more effectively within the partnership than was possible otherwise. The earlier section on participation showed how the community involvement improved the EPA's educational programs as well as project monitoring and evaluation. The cooperative effort and mobilization of private partners allowed access to safe drinking water to be provided faster and at lower costs than could have been done otherwise. The community participation allowed the EPA and medical personnel to identify and reach a population that had been inaccessible. The direct communication between the EPA and the families improved the understanding of issues by all stakeholders and improved the strategic planning. The active involvement of both EPA and the grassroots organization allowed community capacity to be enhanced in ways that would not have been possible without the partnership. From the standpoint of the synergy model, the accomplishments of the collaboration were greater than what could have been achieved individually.

Another key measurement of success is how well the structures survive when the scaffolding is removed. The role of community development planners can be viewed as scaffolding that help sustain a grassroots organization while the capacity is being actualized. A project is successful only if the capacity

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remains and the organization succeeds after the planners leave. For Black Falls, this period began at the end of February, 2009. In the following two months, the water systems have been further improved and the water hauling cooperative is getting water to each home. Representatives from the community have continued their working relationship with the engineer from IHS to secure access to water and to plan the sanitation project. The families have started a new cooperative agricultural project involving a community garden irrigated from the Little Colorado River, which runs through the community. While two months is an insufficient interval to announce the achievement of long-term sustainability, the scaffolding is gone and the community cooperative continues to function.

The preceding measurements of success looked at the instrumental value of the partnership and methodologies - how well the developmental approaches facilitated the tangible goals. Many of these approaches are what Sen calls "instrumental freedoms" (1999), in that they have intrinsic value in addition to their ability to improve the tangible results of the development projects. The measurement of success of a project based on implementing these freedoms also has to consider these intangible benefits. The direct participation of the families in the development of their community, the enhancement of their capacity to solve challenges themselves, and their achievement of agency over their lives and community are significant benefits resulting from the development approaches used in Black Falls. These benefits are especially important for a community recovering from the 42-year Bennett Freeze, when they were deprived by the Bennett Freeze of basic human rights to repair their homes or improve their community.

Implications for Water Haulers

The most important implications of the Black Falls for water haulers affect families in home sites that are too remote to be considered for pipeline access. The EPA, IHS, and other government agencies are developing pipeline projects that will eventually reach a large percentage of the families that currently lack access to piped water. Prior to this project, these agencies had not developed long-term solutions to provide access to safe drinking water for the families who will never be reached by the pipelines.

The project focused the attention of the EPA on the remote families by showing that they were the most likely to be using contaminated sources. They had the greatest difficulties in reaching the safe sources, so they were the most likely to be consuming contaminated water. As a result of their remoteness, they were less likely to be reached by the educational outreach programs. They were also the most economically disadvantaged group, so they were most likely not to be able to afford the costs of accessing safe water. The early project proposals caused interagency working groups to consider these issues and to explore alternatives to the utilitarian equations that directed development exclusively toward clustered settlements. Once they prioritized this group, the agencies became innovative and started designing new programs to address this population, such as supporting water hauling services by the chapter houses and solar cistern sanitation systems for the remote families. The biggest impact of the project was not the systems in 10 homes in Black Falls, but rather the new programs being created by the agencies to address the needs of the remote families.

The technical solutions developed by the project may also be replicable, depending on evaluations after they have been in service for a longer interval. The home water systems designed for the project can be installed by two people in less than two hours, and provide a safe and convenient way to store and distribute water in the home. They can provide an effective solution until a full sanitization system is

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installed. When the long-term solutions are completed, the parts from the temporary can be recycled to other sites. This allows the EPA and government agencies to have a low-cost solution immediately available while plans and funding are mobilized for the full sanitation systems.

The project team also submitted a report to the agency partners describing technical issues in the design of sanitation systems for remote families. Its spreadsheets calculated long-term costs that factor in the cost of hauling water. This changed the relative advantages of different technologies and strategies. This collaboration is still in progress, but may have an impact on the designs ultimately implemented by the agencies.

Implications for Grassroots Organizations

The introduction of the GDD methods and strategies may be useful to grassroots organizations involved in other types of projects. One idea that may be replicable to other situations is the formation of partnerships with government agencies.

The methods for developing government partnerships in Black Falls were intertwined with Freire's liberation philosophy as well as with general GDD guidelines for direct participation and capacity actualization. The idea of freedom with responsibility was a key part of traditional Diné culture, so that GDD principles of agency were readily understood and accepted. These community had not previously applied these ideas to their relationships with government agencies, so the GDD ideas served as a catalyst for a change from a dependency relationship to an equal partnership. To be a partner requires helping the partners succeed in achieve their goals. These can require substantial changes in attitudes, as the historical relationships of the community with some agencies approaches warfare.

To become a partner requires a humanization of the relationship, as the representative of an agency is no longer "the IHS" or "the EPA", but rather is a person with a specific job. Understanding their responsibilities, mandates, options, and pressures allows the people to understand what can be achieved in this relationship, so that the partnership achieves the greatest possible benefits for the grassroots organization. Separating the person from the job also allows personal relations to be developed - the community meetings with partners involved long sessions with communal meals and interactions on many levels. These human relationships are ultimately the most important contributor for success.

The strategies working with government agencies as partners is replicable to many situations faced by other grassroots organizations. The Black Falls experience suggests that this approach works as an instrumental freedom: it serves as an effective tool for developing the community and it provides the people with the intrinsic value that comes from having "a seat at the table".

Implications for EPA

The GDD methods and strategies can be viewed as a set of tools for implementing the EPA's collaborative model. The EPA will have to conduct its own evaluation of the project to determine whether these tools provided a significant benefit to the partnership, both from the utilitarian perspective of accomplishing tangible project goals as well as from achieving the broader goals of EJ such as capacity building and participation of the directly affected people.

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If the EPA decides that the GDD tools were beneficial, the agency has multiple options as to how to enable these tools to be used in future collaborations. These choices are affected by the value assigned to the GDD tools. At the lowest level, the tools might merit a paper at an EJ conference. At the highest level, the EPA could start hiring GDD specialists to work in every community where the EPA is involved in a development project. Many options are available in between these end points, such as providing second tier training to community representatives.

The support for GDD capability requires a grassroots organization with which to work. In the areas where development projects might benefit from these capabilities, no grassroots organization may exist. For example, no local organization existed in Black Falls prior to the project. Instead, FP CDC, which was based in Tuba City, served as a liaison to help the local community get started in the process. The use of a bridge organization may be a replicable tool as well.

In assessing the replicability of the tools, the EPA has to balance the use of GDD against the conventional approach of working through local governance. As was encountered during the Black Falls project, empowering the local citizenry at the grassroots level can sometimes threaten the patronage systems on which local and tribal governance are often based. The EPA has to evaluate whether its commitment to the grassroots principles of EJ justifies becoming involved in the difficult politics of power redistribution in Indian Country. Finally, the replicability of a project may depend on the personnel involved in the process. The officials from the EPA involved in the Black Falls project were sensitive to the needs of GDD, committed to the project's success, and highly capable of fulfilling the demands placed upon them in the rapid time frames associated with GDD. Hopefully, the GDD tools are sufficiently effective in themselves that the success can be replicated without such heroic efforts.

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Appendix :

Appendix A: Community Mapping Project

Homes where water systems Abandoned uranium mines:installed in the project

Truck access points: Potential depot site for storing water

Wells: Red = EPA tested, contaminated; Orange = not tested

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Appendix B: Project Partners and Contributors

OrganizationStrategic Goal of Partner to be

achieved in project Role of Partner in ProjectContact & titleLocation

Forgotten People CDC Assist in development of communities; enhance capacity

of organization for future projects

Obtained grants; attended weekly meetings plus meetings with

stakeholdersDon Yellowman, President

Tuba City, AZBlack Falls Community Coop Obtain access to safe drinking

water and sanitation; participate in planning future of community

Planned and implemented project; weekly meetings attended by all members and other stakeholders

Ronald Tohannie, CoordinatorBlack Falls, AZ

US EPA Fulfill EJ mandates, especially US commitment to reduce by

50% the # of Native Americans w/o access to safe drinking

water

Provided grant funding; facilitated relationships with other strategic

partners; full partner in the planning and implementation of project

Clancy Tenley, Assoc DirectorCommunities & Ecosystem

San Francisco CAUS Indian Health Service To provide technical design and

project management for residential and community-wide water and sanitation systems

Provided the water tanks used in the home systems; coordinated access

to pipeline water for hauling; supervising the installation of

sanitation systems

Kurt Kesteloot, Sr Env EngrDHHS, USPHS, OEHE

Tuba City, AZNorth Country Health Care To reach sectors of population

for radiation screening programs not accessible

through other means

Provide health screening for Black Falls residents; one thyroid cancer

survivor qualified for $50K compensation

Cornelia Todecozy, CoordinatorRadiation Screening & Edu Prog

Flagstaff, AZ Navajo Nation Water Resources Develop long term water supply

plan, particularly for homes too remote to reach via pipelines

Met & advised project planners. Played key role in setting NN water &

infrastructure funding prioritiesDr. John Leeper, Manager

Window Rock, NMUS Agency for Toxic Substances Improve performance of

hospitals in diagnosing radiation-related illnesses;

improve education & outreach to community

Asked by EPA & FP CDC to educate doctors in community hospitals about

health effects and symptoms of radiation exposure

and Disease RegistryLibby Vianu

San Francisco, CATuba City Hospital Improve quality of regional

medical care by increased professional training in radiation

issues

Hosted training conference for local doctors taught by ATSDR

Dr. John Engleton, CEO

Tuba City, AZHome Depot

Store sponsors a community service program

Provided large work crew to handle skilled labor in counter assembly;

provided design consultationBecky Olds, Store Manager

Flagstaff, AZPiedmont Community Church Charitable contribution Donated funding for water delivery

trailer and pumping systemPiedmont, CAHeller School, Brandeis

University Provide service to developing communities; provide training to

development planners

Developed the curriculum on which the project was based; sponsored students for 1 week visit to help

install systems

Capacity Building InitiativeDr. Lawrence Simon

Waltham, MA

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Appendix C: EPA Signage

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