The Lukachukai Creek headwaters are in the Chuska Mountains along the northeast border of Arizona and New Mexico within the Colorado Plateau within the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation. Most of the snowpack for the region is accumulated along this important range, making it a vital water source. According to the Indigenous residents, the mountain range is known as a male deity in which many medicinal herbs and other natural remedies are found, making it a sacred place. Approximately 40% of the population lives below the poverty line and the water hauling cost is $133 per thousand gallons, among the most expensive in the U.S.
This project will spearhead long-term efforts to protect watersheds, boost groundwater infiltration at the headwaters of a perennial stream and enhance Indigenous land users’ access to their ancestral homelands and practices. The strategy is to increase community involvement in stewardship and restoration by educating, having conversations, involving and validating the community’s knowledge of their homelands and including them in decision making. The end goal will be restoration and protection of 40 acres of wet meadows and the designation of 3 miles of Totsoh Creek as an Exceptional Water of the Navajo Nation. In the past, community members engaged in recreational activities including hiking, sheep herding, horseback riding, medicinal herb gathering, and ceremonies. This project will enhance these activities and allow reconnection to the land through stewardship and restoration activities.
