Awards Database

Partners: Milton Bluehouse Jr., Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the President and Vice President

• Award Date: Sep 2020
• Status: Ongoing

Pre-design is desperately needed to evaluate and connect Leupp Well 2B to the new well located in Leupp, AZ in the southwestern region of the Navajo Nation planned to supply water for the Dilkon Medical Center, currently under construction. The primary well constructed for the Dilkon Medical Center has water quality issues, and additional water source is needed. The Southwestern Navajo Rural Water Supply Program Appraisal Study has been completed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Native American Affairs Office for the southwestern region of the Navajo Nation, including Leupp in the southwestern portion of the U.S.  Leupp Well 2B is 1096 feet deep and yielded 745 gallons per minute.  Leupp and the immediate surrounding area receives the least amount of precipitation compared to the rest of the Navajo Nation; it is the aridest area and is susceptible to severe drought conditions. Pre-design costs are $551,314.

• Award Date: Sep 2020
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Ongoing

Funds to support the UArizona Native American Initiative office to develop a Strategy Plan. 

• Award Date: Sep 2020
• Duration: 8 months
• Status: Ongoing

Funding support to complete the design and then launch the UArizona Native American Web Portal Research Data Base and Inventory of Resources and Programs (“Grand Challenges” pillar- identified in the overall 2019 Strategic Plan for the University of Arizona).

• Award Date: Sep 2020
• Duration: 1.5 years
• Status: Ongoing

As part of the 2019 University of Arizona Strategic Plan Native American Advancement and Tribal Engagement Initiative (UA Native American SP), the University of Arizona (UA) Provost’s Office and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe have agreed to establish the UA’s first tribal micro campus on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation (Note: this is partial funding).

Partners: Chris Shuey, Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC), Albuquerque, New Mexico

• Award Date: Sep 2020
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Ongoing

The award supports a part-time intern to update the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resource Water Development Strategy. The research intern will work with Dr. Tulley-Cordova from the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources (NNDWR) and Chris Shuey from the Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Partners: Jing Luo, Appex Applied Technology, Inc., Trent Teegerstrom, Arizona Federally Recognized Tribes Extension Program (FRTEP)

• Award Date: Jul 2020
• Duration: 10 months
• Status: Completed

The Water Bus project aims to serve as a rapid relief response effort which will provide safe drinking water to the Hopi Tribe villagers. The water bus will be deployed in Shipaulovi Village. The Water Bus's filtration system requires no external power sources as it is 100% solar powered. 

The Air to Water project aims to test a system powered by an integral combination of solar photovoltaics and high-efficiency solar thermal energy to produce water. The team will conduct a performance test of the SOURCE Hydro-Panel system to better understand the feasibility of applying “air to water” technologies in arid and semi-arid regions. The system will be deployed in the Navajo Nation. 

Partners: Northern Arizona University, Ronson Engineering, University of California, MSU, University of New Mexico, SRIC

• Award Date: Jul 2020
• Duration: 8 months
• Status: Ongoing

The project aims to identify COVID-19 high-risk areas in the Navajo Nation. Through UArizona’s collaborations regarding water, health, and environmental health, project leaders will create a map that combines water quality, water infrastructure, health, and socio-economic data to identify areas on the Navajo Nation that are most at risk for a COVID-19 spike in the fall due to lack of access to water, food, and energy. 

Partners: Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), the Indian Health Service (IHS) Sanitation Facilities Construction Program and a Chapter House in the Navajo Nation

• Award Date: Jul 2020
• Duration: 4 years
• Status: Ongoing

The project aims to address the urgent need for food, energy, and water on the Navajo Nation that has been intensified due to COVID-19. The project leaders will use pressure-driven desalination methods, nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO) for the treatment of brackish waters such as those on the Navajo Nation while producing high-quality water. The system will be powered by solar panels.  

The team will construct and deploy two off-grid mobile water purification units to test the system. The overall goal of the project is to provide mid and long-term solutions to the food, energy, and water challenges in the Navajo Nation.

• Award Date: Jul 2020
• Duration: 1.5 years
• Status: Ongoing

Funds for an Administrative Assistant to the newly appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, (UNSRRIP/Special Rapporteur), Francisco Cali Tzay. 

• Award Date: Jun 2020
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Ongoing

The project's aim is to inspire underserved Native American and Hispanic youth to pursue STEM careers. The project focused on strengthening opportunities related to the nexus of social justice and the environment in the education pipeline (k-12) for underserved Native Americans and Hispanic youth. The project prepared students with the necessary math background for them to take advanced math courses by 12th grade to increase the number of underserved youth placing into higher prerequisite math courses required in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). 

• Award Date: May 2020
• Duration: 8 months
• Status: Ongoing

Graduate Student Support for Karletta Chief, UArizona Department of Environmental Science.

Recipient: Nikki Tulley, second-year Ph.D. student, UArizona Department of Environmental Science

Ms. Tulley will assist Dr. Chief on the Indigenous Food, Energy & Water Security and Sovereignty (Indige-FEWSS) program. Indige-Fewss aims to develop a diverse workforce with intercultural awareness and Food-Energy-Water Security (FEWS) expertise to address FEWS challenges in indigenous communities.

Partners: Northern Arizona University, Ronson Engineering, University of California, MSU, University of New Mexico, SRIC

• Award Date: May 2020
• Duration: 6 months
• Status: Completed

The project aims to identify COVID-19 high-risk areas in the Navajo Nation. Through UArizona’s collaborations regarding water, health, and environmental health, project leaders will create a map that combines water quality, water infrastructure, health, and socio-economic data to identify areas on the Navajo Nation that are most at risk for a COVID-19 spike in the fall due to lack of access to water, food, and energy. 

• Award Date: Mar 2020
• Duration: 1.5 years
• Status: Ongoing

The project's aim is to inspire underserved Native American and Hispanic youth to pursue STEM careers. The project focused on strengthening opportunities related to the nexus of social justice and the environment in the education pipeline (k-12) for underserved Native Americans and Hispanic youth. The project prepared students with the necessary math background for them to take advanced math courses by 12th grade to increase the number of underserved youth placing into higher prerequisite math courses required in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). 

Partners: David Seibert, Borderlands Restoration Network; Robin Reineke, UArizona Southwest Center; Natalia Mendoza Rockwell, Fordham University; Carolyn O'Meara, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Chris Lukinbeal, UArizona School of Geography and Development

• Award Date: Jan 2020
• Award Amount: $5,850
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Completed

Since at least the mid-1990s, United States immigration policies have harshly affected people and places across the Sonoran Desert border region. In an attempt to ‘secure’ the border, these policies have militarized and effectively ‘weaponized’ the desert landscape, using infrastructure and enforcement to funnel migration into the hottest, driest, and most sparsely populated zones. The hoped-for result is that the ruggedness, isolation, and extreme heat would deter migrants from attempting to cross. Instead, the border has become a collective site of humanitarian and ecological crisis.

Social justice and environmental groups in the region have responded with great courage and creativity, but their voices are so often lost in the political fray and drowned out by the stridency of popular media. In particular, they face two central challenges: 1) their work remains largely isolated -- that is, these groups are, with some important exceptions, not in dialogue with one another; and 2) their unique data are rarely available to a broader public, let alone shared among different non-profit groups to increase effective collaboration. This partnership collaboration aims to build a team that works for an ethical and equitable program of collaborative inquiry among academic, humanitarian, and environmental communities. We hope to break down the silos of border research and nurture the production of much-needed local knowledge on the region. Our overarching reason for this partnership, therefore, is to begin developing a framework for collaboration between researchers and community partners to protect, extend, and communicate the innovative local ways that human and non-human communities have resisted, restored, and flourished in the context of border militarization.

The primary project partners (co-leads) -- UA Southwest Center, Southern Border Communities Coalition, and Borderlands Restoration Network -- will work toward a common language and collective goals for sharing data and local knowledge on the impacts of border militarization in the Sonoran Desert region. Such a partnership brings together a diverse array of backgrounds and perspectives: humanistic, environmental, and social.

Partners: Shefali Milczarek-Desai, UArizona Law, and The Tucson Cooperative Network [The Community Food Bank of Arizona, Tucson Rainwater Harvesting Co-op, Cooperative Impulso, Flowers and Bullets, BICAS, Local First Arizona, Technicians for Sustainability]

• Award Date: Jan 2020
• Award Amount: $5,608
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Completed

This partnership aims to strengthen the Tucson Cooperative Network (TCN). The TCN promotes and supports the creation of worker-owned cooperatives, growing a community with fair wages, equal rights, equity and mutual collaboration. We focus on regenerative businesses such as rainwater harvesting, habitat restoration, sustainable food production, and individual capacity building centered on indigenous values that respect all beings. These businesses regenerate natural, social and cultural capital and build resilience to climate change. We work with all people without discrimination and prioritize immigrants, women, LGBTQ+, people who are low-income, and people of color. By supporting these marginalized populations to become business owners, we restore socioeconomic equality to achieve social justice.

Our network organizations (see Question 3) focus on supporting local/regional communities to achieve environmental sustainability and environmental justice. By developing a viable business model for these activities, we create a more financially sustainable path for these critical activities. We envision the Southwest in the next 25 years prospers from businesses centered on regenerating instead of depleting natural, social and cultural capitals. This region also will support a strong ecosystem of democratically governed cooperative businesses. In this model, market capital flows to the population in need and the environment in need to restore ecological balance, enhance social collaboration, and strengthen democracy and economic equality. We take a network approach, focus on key players in our regional network, train them to become both cooperatives and cooperative promoters. Our approach is analogous to acupuncture, activating and strengthening critical nodal points in a network to achieve whole-system effects. This network approach not just moves the needle, but creates a socioeconomic movement that unites our society and restores natural balance.