Water Availability in the Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona

This blog post and the maps included were created by our summer intern Sydney Thomas. She will be researching and mapping water access in Arizona throughout the summer.

What do you see on the map? 

The map displays the populations of the Navajo, Gila, and Apache Counties in Arizona. The Fort Apache Reservation, which is outlined in black on the map, includes land within all three of those counties. Because of this, some areas within the reservation have a higher population than others. The map also shows the availability of surface-level water resources, including major rivers as dark blue lines on the map, and lakes, which are the smaller, light blue spots. Because the lakes are small and very few in number, they would not provide a reliable source of water to survive and carry out daily activities. There is also one river that runs through the reservation, the White River, which runs in the eastern portion of the Fort Apache Reservation. Based on the population data, it can be seen that most of the population living in the reservation would be centered around the river, as it is a large and reliable source of fresh water.

What does that mean for the reservation?

The White Mountain Apache pertains to the Western Apache subgroup, whose pre-invasion territory comprised most of today’s eastern Arizona. Before Euro-American encroachment, Western Apache groups traveled over a vast area encompassing a variety of distinct environments. Richard Perry (1991) is a historian who focuses on Western Apache foodways because " the simple need to obtain food has imposed constraints on options and has influenced choices, fostering the development of certain cultural features" (p.14). Scholars such as Keith Basso (1971), Grenville Goodwin (1935), Winfred Buskirk (1986) document multiple food strategies prior to the reservation period. According to Goodwin, there existed four primary food sources: hunting and gathering, domesticated plants raised on small farms, raising, and trading. Goodwin (1942) estimates that no more than 60 percent of the White Mountain Apaches engaged in agriculture because of the limited availability of arable land. Even when engaging in agriculture, the Apache tradition was to visit the fields during planting and then migrate to other areas to hunt and gather then return to fields for harvest. In this way, the Apache had a very sparse material existence with possessions limited to what they could carry over long distances.

Buskirk (1986) writes that the Apache's nomadic culture played a critical role in South West Trade networks. The earliest Euro-American accounts of life in Puebla communities, such as Zuni and Hopi, document the trade with Apache's who provided buffalo hides and other items from distant areas. When incursion by Comanches and Euro-Americans impeded their access to the plains, the Apaches took to raiding Mexican homesteads. Keith Basso (1971) describes Apache's life as being centered around extended family networks. Agricultural production continued to be a family affair for decades after the imposition of reservation life.

The Euro Americans began to encroach on Apache lands after Mexico ceded the region following the Mexican-American war in 1848. The White Mountain Apache had sent leaders to Santa Fe and knew much more about the invaders than they did about the Apache. In July of 1969, Brevet Colonel John Green led a scouting expedition of the 1st Cavalry to kill or capture any Apache people they encountered. The Army scouts reported finding over 100 acres of cornfields along the White River. Escapa, an Apache chief, visited Col Green's camp and invited him to visit his village. Green sent Capitan John Barry with the instructions " if possible, exterminate the whole village." When Barry arrived, he found white flags flying from every hut and prominent point, and the men, women, and children came out with baskets of corn for the horses. Barry reported that if they had fired upon them, they would have been guilty of cold-blooded murder (Uniqueness of the White Mountain Apache, 2021).

The accommodation strategy would prove critical to the White Mountain Apache's survival as a people on lands considered sacred. Escapa and other Apache leaders suggested that the military establish a post at the confluence of the East and North forks of the White River. While the site was an excellent post for the U.S. military operations to subdue the Indigenous population, it allowed the White Mountain Apache to remain on their ancestral lands. White Mountain Apache joined the U.S. military as scouts, and it was the White Mountain Apache scout Alchesay that would assist in the capture of Geronimo (Uniqueness of the White Mountain Apache, 2021).

The majority of the White Mountain Apache population lives next to the White River, as it is the main reliable source of water. Therefore the more barren land to the west would not be inhabited by a large portion of the tribe’s population because of the lack of water. The Fort Apache Reservation is 1.67 million acres, which is a large amount of land that cannot be utilized to its full potential because of the lack of water access. Water is essential to many practices of daily life, including washing, growing crops, or cooking, all of which is made very difficult because of the shortage of water, making the good health and growth of the native population difficult (whitemountainapache.org). 

How does climate change affect these water resources?

The warming global temperature and irregular precipitation that are consequences of climate change increase the probability of drought, which is damaging to biodiversity as well as water access. Droughts can cause water levels in rivers to decrease and river beds to dry up as evaporation is increased from the air needing moisture because of decreased precipitation (americanrivers.org). The warm air temperatures will cause the water to retain more heat and increase in temperature itself, which is detrimental to fish populations that are used to cooler water. Thus the biodiversity of rivers and lakes will be negatively affected, which is dangerous for the survival of many species (Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute).

What do you see on the map?

On this map, the purple dots indicate registered wells that can be used to extract water from underground freshwater aquifers. There are very few wells within the reservation itself compared to surrounding areas. There are also three main groundwater sub-basins within the reservation, the Salt River Canyon, White River, and Black River sub-basins, which are faintly outlined in red. These sub-basins are areas where water is stored underground in aquifers, and are classified by the flow of water from a river into the aquifer. For example, the White River sub-basin seen on the map gets water that flows from the White River underground, which is one of the ways that the aquifer regenerates water. Again, the Fort Apache Reservation can be seen outlined in black. 

What does that mean for the reservation?

Based on the lack of wells, it is evident that groundwater is not the main source of water for the White Mountain Apache tribe. This is a positive thing because of the decrease in water stored in aquifers. This means that there is not a reliable source of groundwater that would provide enough of the resource for the population to survive now or in the future (WMAT Rural Water System Project Overview). Again, since most of the reservation’s water is obtained from the White River and not from groundwater, then a lot of the land in the east of the Fort Apache Reservation, without access to surface water, would not have enough water to sustain people. 

How does climate change affect these water resources?

Climate change has a large impact on groundwater resources, as increasing temperatures and irregular precipitation patterns increase the probability of drought. Drought would not allow for underground aquifers, which are underground layers of permeable rock that store freshwater, to properly recharge because of the lack of water being absorbed into the ground, which would cause aquifers to not have water to be extracted and used for everyday life. As underground water sources deplete, then the risk of drought would again be increased, which would impose more of a problem on other water resources, like rivers and lakes, and thus the survival of the population (Sydney Thomas). 

What does this all mean for the reservation in the future?

If the pattern of climate change continues and biodiversity and water access is affected, then the White Mountain Apache tribe will be negatively impacted as well. Climate change can cause food and water insecurity as well as forced migration of Indigenous people, which may be seen in Arizona if water access becomes too little (Jeriyah Savage). The rivers may not be able to sustain the population as the main water resource, and water may become even more scarce than it is already, endangering the tribe’s ability to survive. 

Works Cited:

Basso, Keith H. (1971). Western Apache Raiding and Warfare. University of Arizona Press.

“The Impacts of Climate Change on Rivers.” American Rivers, 31 May 2016, www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/clean-water/impacts-rivers/. 

Goodwin, G. (1935). The Social Divisions and Economic Life of the Western Apache. American

Anthropologist, 37(1), 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1935.37.1.02a00050

History. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2021, from https://yavapai-apache.org/history/

“Lakes, Rivers, and Streams.” Environmental Resilience Institute Part of the Prepared for Environmental Change Grand Challenge, eri.iu.edu/erit/implications/lakes-rivers-streams.html#:~:text=Climate%20changes%20such%20as%20rising,impact%20lakes%2C%20rivers%20and%20streams.&text=Shallow%20waters%20are%20especially%20vulnerable,habitat%20for%20cold%2Dwater%20species. 

“Our Culture.” White Mountain Apache Tribe, whitemountainapache.org/culture/#:~:text=The%20majority%20of%20the%20population,East%20Fork%2C%20and%20Seven%20Mile. 

Perry, R. J. (2014). Western Apache Heritage: People of the Mountain Corridor. University of

Texas Press.

“Project Overview.” White Mountain Apache Tribe Rural Water System, www.usbr.gov/lc/phoenix/reports/wmatrwseis/wmatfactsheet.pdf. 

Savage, Jeriyah. “The Horrendous Effects of Climate Change on Indigenous Communities  .” Google Docs, Google, docs.google.com/document/d/1yNIlSbIVsqWQjLQGsAxOMM7ii0BKg7dD_OBYqNhgPqg/edit.

Thomas, Sydney. “The Impact of the Climate Crisis on the Availability of Groundwater Resources.” Google Docs, docs.google.com/document/d/1eYKwM_pX27SP423eWcRHajNhLUEXm1JnX5KPRi7IeYU/edit?usp=sharing. 

Tomblin, D. C. (2016). The White Mountain Recreational Enterprise: Bio-Political Foundations

for White Mountain Apache Natural Resource Control, 1945–1960. Humanities, 5(3).

https://doi.org/10.3390/h5030058